literature books

my subject this time is a bit heavy, i must say. but i really got to get it out of my system since it has been in me for too long. before i begin, i'm not a literature expert or something which means i didn't do any research or anything ..this is purely my opinion. i just have the need to write this because i do care. and here we go ...

so i have this wishful thinking that one day ..one day ..i might find myself travelling around the world. and this thought came up from one of (i would say) the biggest adventure books written by Jules Verne. wouldn't it be fun to travel around the world to know that there are hundreds of interesting things you can learn about other's culture? it has been my dream and i trully hope that i will fulfil my dream. it is literally something that i will always longed for. isn't it amazing that a book will give you that kind of passion over something? even though you still don't know or not sure whether it will come true. but knowing it has already given me an excitement and pleasure and with this book, i will begin my thoughts.

firstly, i gotta admit to you all that i'm not familiar with this author. i only know a glimps of information about him. yes ..i know that he has written quite some amazing books ..mostly sci-fiction kinda book, which at that time where his imagination was running wild, some people think that he's crazy. he actually wrote about submarines and aircrafts - fyi, these two things have not been invented yet. and now he is referred as the "father of sci-fi". anyway, that's the only information i know about Jules Verne. nothing more than this, sorry to say.

but back to my subject ..i always love books. i do enjoy reading book in my leisure time but i gotta tell you that sometimes i feel so sorry that i didn't get the chance to read those literature when i was in school. i mean, back when i was in school, the only literature books we have to read is the Indonesian literature. while in my opinion, we should also be taught to read literatures from other countries as well. why? because it means that you have the chance to see or at least get a bit of imagination of what's happening outside our own coutry. as simple as that. doesn't mean that i consider Indonesian literatures are not interesting ..it's just that i personally think we should learn other's lit as well.

c'mon ..let's be honest here, we all know the name like William Shakespeare. we know that he's the author of Romeo and Juliet tragedies ..but tell me, who has really read this? not to mentioned the-so-called Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth. oh yes, we all so familiar with those names right? but still not many of Indonesian students have the chance to read these. except that you went to school abroad. i actually feel sad to know this. these all are great literatures to read, i'd say. i , myself, haven't got the chance to read all these ..but it's already in my to-read-list.

- Romeo and Juliet -

ok, Jules Verne and William Shakespeare are just two examples of the classic literatures. let me give you other examples from the more-recent authors (who actually born in the 1930 something rather than 1800).

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende ..this is one of my favourite book. i LOVE this book to pieces. it actually took me years to get this book, believe it or not. why? dunno ..it's not the kind of book you could easily get here. i bought this book about 2 years ago in Kinokuniya. and you know ..that one was the last copy on the shelve! i have, of course, watched the mini series - ages ago. honestly speaking, it was the mini series which brought me to buy the novel. the imagination of a white luck dragon tickles me. the world beyond our world. i would say that childern around the world should've read this book. it's sooo good to develop their mind.



another book i want to discuss here is The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. this book has brought a big controversy in the US. the language which Salinger has used is not a common one. he used a lot of vulgar language. Holden Caulfield is the main character and the narattor in this book. Holden was (as some people called him) a trouble maker. he actually is not - well, at least to me. he's just being a normal 16 year old boy. he is a smart boy actually, but he sees the world differently. i just love his cynical and bitterness. ok, this might not be a good book to read for children but i would really recommend this book for adults. if you really wanna see what's inside of the 16 year-old teenager's brain ..you should read this. and oh, btw ..please be reminded that reading this is only for fun ..don't do anything more than that. cause some say that this book has lead a guy to commit suicide or turn into a serial killer due to depression (something like that). dunno whether it is true or not ..i'll let you be the judge.

- a different version of The Catcher in the Rye book cover -

and there is again ..another book which is in my list is this book called Lord of the Flies by William Golding. i just bought this book like two weeks ago and has been sitting in my to-read-book-pile. guess that i've got 5 or 6 books ready to read in my leisure time. oh ..that reminds me, i have taken a week off in the month of December just to chill and entertain myself by reading books and watching dvds. anyway, i have read a few pages of this book. looks fun to read this. i can imagine a bunch of school boy stuck in the deserted island and thinking that they will rule themselves. hmm, i can see clearly that a chaos will be on the way :). this should teaches us whether we have to live by the rule or following your own free-will. you know something like that.

with that, it has come to the end of my discussion. these are only a few of literature books that popped out my mind. i believe that there are hundreds of books lying out there for you to read. books that will teaches you a lot of things you might not get in the your "normal life". you know, these might not be a good literature books to be taught in schools. but i do hope you got my point. children nowadays should be taught something that will stimulates their imagination, just to trigger their creativities to become something useful in the future. once again, i have to tell you that i'm not very literature-y kinda person. i just wish that i have been given the opportunities to read those books when i was in school, that's all.

Tim Burton's - The Nightmare Before Christmas

Boys and girls of every age

Wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Come with us and you will see

This, our town of Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene

Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream

In this town of Halloween

that was only a few parts of the lyric sang by a few of ghosts at the beginning of the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. one of Tim Burton's masterpiece - for me! i honestly can't remember when was the first time i watched this movie (ok, my fault) but since that, i've been deeply in love with Jack Skellington, the main character in the movie. he ..as you might already guess ..is a skelleton who lives in a town called Hallowen Town. and Jack ..he's the Pumpkin King (what else?). the villagers in that town adores Jack ..even the Mayor! the Mayor cannot even prepare the Hallowen without Jack ..so yeah, Jack is the town's favourite.

to me ..Jack is good looking. i know, i know!! you guys must've think that i'm crazy. i can hear y'all say "he's just a skeleton and cartoon character, you silly girl!!". but i really do think that he's good looking ..i mean, duh, for a skeleton. gotta say that he's got the charm. he actually has made me fall under his charm. oh yeah ..i'm that lame :). amazon at that time was not a very good friend of mine ..yet. so, i really don't know where to get the original DVD for this movie. trust me ..it's not easy to find things like that here.

a few years back ..i finally found the DVD, yay!! buuttt, gotta tell you that it's pirated. like i said ..it's not easy to find those things here in Jakarta. in early 2007, gotta chance to go to Disneyland in HK. oooh, to those of you who has been there knows very well that it is literally a HEAVEN in earth ..for Disney's merchandises. unfortunatelly, it was not a good time for me to go there ..why? because there's not much Nightmare merchandises. cannot even find a t-shirt :(. but yeah, i had fun there ..bought all the small merchandises for souveniers. anyway, i managed to buy a pair of Nightmare sandal at Sogo in Causewaybay. it has become my favourite sandal in the office.

but then last Oct, Jeanette went to Disney in HK and she bought me Jack t-shirt. and you know what's even better? it glows in the dark ..hahahaha! oooh, i love it. thanks, Net. and just recently, i bought a Nightmare monitor cleaner along with the keyboard cleaner and a beauty case (it's literally Jack's face!). the good news is ..the original DVD is in town!! woohoo!

so i bought it and played it like over 5 times. FYI - that was actually my niece (the youngest one) who wants to watch the movie over and over again. she was a bit scared at first ..but then she enjoyed the song ..she even dance along with it ..cute, eh? and today, i bought Nightmare HP strap and stickers. i actually thinking on buying the HP pouch which looks almost like this ..

but it has Sally's big face on it ..so i decided not to. i don't like Sally ..really! i just don't like her ..don't asked me why. oh ..i almost forgot to tell you this. there are two stores at the South Sky Walk in PIM 2 which sells cute merchandises. you name it ..from Hello Kitty, My Melody, all Disney's characters, etc etc. so i went to that store with Jeanette. she went crazy over My Melody, btw. she has literally spent quite amount of money for buying those My Melody merchandises. you know what i hate the most? man ..the price of those merchandises are not cheap at all. i saw Nightmare cigarette pack and it costs like 145, 000. but i don't remember asking for the price of that HP pouch i want. i lost my interest once i saw Sally on it ..so i didn't bother to ask.

anyway, i actually found quite a lot of Nightmare merchandises there. but like i said, the price if unbelievable. for instance, i fall in love in one of Nightmare wall clock ..it's soo cute and it glows in the dark as well. and do you know how much it cost? it's over 400,000 rups just for a wall clock! can you believe it? i'm sure that if i buy these at Disney HK, it'll cost me a lot cheaper than this. guarantee. oh well ..i'm planning to collect it one by one or else i would have to literally crawl to the office :). so wish me luck ...

my hair evolution

last night i watched this drama on DVD and saw all these weird hair styles ..and i was literally thinking of how many times have i changed my hair style or color. hmmmm, this might be an interesting subject for me to write on my blog. i know ..it's not an interesting subject for you ..but i guess i'll have fun with this.

let's see ..i have to go way back in around 2001. well ok, not as far back as you imagine ..but i'm not sure i remember anything before that year :). and here we go ...

me and ella

this was taken in early 2002 by my ex-boss (the great RP Singh)

when we held an IMCA meeting at Gran Melia

this was taken in early 2003
when i was in India

Jul 03
this is the longest hair i've ever had in my entire life, LITERALLY!

and not long after that ..

Feb 2004
oh yeah, i cut my hair drastically - one thing that i
will always remember is the expression of this girl who sat
next to me at the salon :)

July 2004

not much difference afterwards, i guess ....

Sep 2004
yep, just a little trim from the last time

Nov 2004

grew a little bit

Feb 2005
tried to grow my hair a little bit ..or didn't have time to salon?
hmmmm .. my least fav hair style actually ..

(btw, that was my boss. tried to find other pics of me

alone with that hair style ..can't find any. sob!)

July 2005
phew, finally i cut my hair ...again :)

another drastic hair cut ..

Dec 2005

tried to keep it long enough ..by changing hair color

Feb 2006

Jun 06

and managed to have it that long but ...failed. and here's another drastic hair cut

Jul 06

grown a bit ..and changed the color ...

some time in the year of 2006

guess in 2007 until mid 2008, i had a pretty much decent hair cut or color ..as you can see below

early 2007

Jul 07

(pretty decent, huh?)

late 2007

early 2008

mid 2008

and the most recent ones are ....ta daaa

gotta admit these last ones are the pretty shocking to those who close with me. i, honestly speaking, wasn't expecting it to be like this ..but i like it. oh well ..i guess that's quite a long record for a simple thing called hair :) ..

FreeTEMPO

so i was watching this very popular Korean TV drama, it's called Coffee Prince. think i watched this drama last year. i really recommend this drama to all of you who don't really like the usual Korean drama (you know, cos of the tears and everything). but this particular drama is very different from the others. yes, there are some sad scenes ..but you wouldn't have to dry your tears literally. and most of the time, they made me laugh out loud.

eniwei, this is not the reason why i write this blog. the reason is ..i love one of the OST in this drama and it's Immaterial White by FreeTEMPO. at first, i was thinking ..who the hell is this FreeTEMPO? is this a group or a band or what? i immediately goggled the internet (oh yeah, i was that curious) and this is what i found about FreeTEMPO as i quote from the wikipedia:

"FreeTEMPO (free tempo), the artists of DJ Takeshi半沢 by the solo unit. ボサノヴァ 、 AOR 、 ジャズ 、 ハウスなどの要素を持つクラブミュージックを展開する。 BOSANOVA, AOR, jazz, house, with elements of club music to expand. インディーズレーベルのforestnauts records（ ユニバーサル・ミュージック ）やイタリアのIRMA RECORDSなどから楽曲を発表している"

a few other FreeTEMPO songs that i know are: Imagery, Sky High and Harmony. all are good songs. and i've been trying to find the CD here in Jakarta ..and you know what? none of the music store knows about this guy, sob! oh well, just to make myself happy and to fulfil your curiousity ..below is the Immaterial White video which i found in youtube. enjoy ...

커피 한잔 어때?

ok, before i started ..i guess i have to romanization and translate of the above title, before i lost you all in translation :). the romanization is Khopi Hanchan Otte? which means How about a Cup of Coffee? this actually a title of a song which is sang by Humming Urban Stereo - Feat. Yojo.

anyway, dunno whether i should call myself a coffee addict. i LOVE coffee, i can't stand a day without it. but, having an acute gastric problem ..i have to limit myself for only a cup a day - i used to drink coffee like 2 times a day ..early morning and in the afternoon. and that frustrate me sometimes, sigh! i remember, back then when i was in elementary school, every morning my mum used to make me a cup of hot milk with coffee for a better taste. so yeah, i guess i grew up with coffee.

speaking of coffee, it always connect me with coffee house. and speaking of coffee house, i always imagine myself in a different world when i'm in it. it's exactly the same feeling i have whenever i'm in a bookstore, library or music store. why? dunno. most probably because i have so much passion over those things ..i mean coffee and books as well as music and movie.

anyway, i don't mind spending hours of my time all by myself in the coffee house ..just to have a cup of my favourite coffee latte while reading a book or magazine, especially if it's a quiet coffee shop. why? cos i love that serenity atmostphere ..it relax me. somehow, i always envy their single sofa. how come it's sooo comforting just to seat and read on it? i literally thinking of getting, or buying, one of those sofas from the coffee house (can we?).

but then again, of course, for me the coziest place on earth is my bedroom ..but coffee houses, bookstores and music stores follows very tightly after :). i was really thinking of renovating my room to become something like one of those places. a place where i could find myself drowning in my own world surrounded by hundreds of books, CDs and DVDs while having my coffee. aaah, what a bliss. it'll be a little heaven i created in this busy and noisy world.

my friends and i usually went to coffee house after office hours or on weekends or on my holidays ..oh well, basically almost every time. there were times when we just finished having our seafood night at the Kelapa Gading area, we decided to go to Sheraton in bandara ..just to have a cup of coffee at their coffee shop. i know!! we were actually driving from one side of Jakarta to the other ..but like i said, the atmosphere in that coffee shop brought us there

just recently, we went to this small restaurant at Kemang area, it's called Praline. i have always adore the exterior of that restaurant cos it's soo European. there were only like less than 15 tables - yep, it's that small. it's an old building and has this vintage French interior inside with lots of old pictures (in French, of course). the price is affordable. i mean, for a cup of cappucino, it costs only IDR20,000.

anyway, we took some pictures while we were there, apparently, we didn't take pictures for the whole gang ...

here's some of the pictures taken at several coffee shops in several occasions ..

그럼, 커피 한잔 어때?