Lia Golledge's Blog, page 12

Autumn in London

The first thing I notice when I arrive in Heathrow was that they don’t have a free wifi access. My friend sending me information on how I’m going to get to my hotel via Whatsapp, and I can’t get the message. I don’t know how, but I got his last message, “Don’t pay for anything.” So, I immediately assumed someone has been waiting for me outside.

An awkward 20 something South Asian man standing holding my name in his hand. I nod to him to give him sign that it’s my name and we walk. Next step, I expect him to help me with my huge 20 kg luggage. He didn’t. Welcome to London, I sighed. No more princess treatment like in Jakarta, all on my own.

My taxi driver is Muslim, and so all of my other taxi drivers while I was in London. They come from different countries, like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc. Unlike the the regular black square London Taxi, the taxi I’ve been using was look like private cars but they can be rented as a taxi on several destination. From airport to hotel will cost around 45 Pounds. For short destination from 5 to 20 Pounds. I use it a lot to get from hotel to the nearest Underground station.

I chat a lot with taxi drivers and they immediately said that I’m friendly, “Indonesian girls are pretty and friendly.” I laughed. It’s a fact :P *high five girls* From them I learn a little bit about living in London. The cost. The traffic. And I make a mental comparison with Jakarta. I think Jakarta and London are both expensive city. But for property, London price even crazier.

I observe that the front staff in my hotel was mostly someone from Europe. I chat with a Slovakian girl in one of London cafe. Because of the crisis in Eastern Europe (and most of Europe nations), they come to London for a better life. They’re mostly lovely looking man or woman, free to enter London with their visa, and  they don’t need work visa to get a job. I thought it’s easier for them to get a job. But the girl I was talking to said it’s still not that easy. She wish to work her career as a singer and I wish her luck.

Getting around London is pretty easy. My friend said you won’t get lost in London. Just get your Oyster card and hop to the tube (London’s Underground train). The tube map is one of the most complicated in the world. But I managed to travel by myself with the help of some iPhone apps like TubeMap and offline London Map from Lonely Planet app. When I got on the wrong train, I simply asked someone, everybody speak good English of course, and the worst thing that could happen to you was someone laughing at you for your stupidity in choosing the wrong train. That happened to me :))

One thing though. As a girl traveling alone, I didn’t anticipated the ‘unwanted attention’ from men. Well, I’m not a super model. I’m wearing hijab. And my body language is strong and confident. But still, I got aggressively ‘hit’ by strangers on the street. They can just stop me and start conversation, “Where are you from? Care to have a coffee together?” or calling me from the next table, ask to join his. Wow. At one point I feel kind of scared. Maybe this is why people walking so fast with their eyes looking at their feet most of the time.

It was Fall in London, the weather more colder than my last visit, and it was raining most of the time. I enjoy my time walking by London canals where some people live in their boat, went to Westminster because the last time I didn’t have time to take picture for my avatar haha, to Shakespeare Globe Theatre but not watching anything yet, strolling by Thames river at night with the full moon above the river, enjoying Van Gogh’s Sunflower in National Gallery and wondering why people ponder in front of a painting, listening to demonstration in Trafalgar Square about child abuse overlooking Big Ben behind it, eating my first London street food in Camden Market, and joining the Friday night crowd in Piccadilly.

I would really miss walking (I walked a lot in London). In Jakarta, walking is simply impossible with the non-existent sidewalk and the air pollution. I will miss the tranquility I got in places like London canals and the historical museum. Shirley even said that the way I travel is like old people. People in their 20s usually will party hard in London. LOL. Thanks, but no thanks. If I want party, I’ll go to Bali. Only 1 hour 45 minutes flight. But no, I also won’t party in Bali. I go straight to Ubud and read books with rice field view in front of me. Now I feel really really old :))

“I’ve been looking at you. The way you dress is pretty! Where are you from?” The lady smile at me. I just got hit by a girl. Turned out in London, men and women are not afraid to express what’s on their mind. I smile at her, “Thanks. I’m Indonesian.”
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Sharing with Indonesian Students in London

Had a wonderful chance to come back to London last September 2012 and speak in front of 40 Indonesian students in London at Indonesian Embassy, London. This is my first time going to Indonesian embassy and speaking abroad, so I was so excited.

I’m sharing about my new book ‘Yes, You Can!‘ and update them about Indonesian current situation in creative industry especially about writing, online business, and technology. Right now Indonesia is on fire. More than 50% of our population are young people under 35 years old. We are a young country and we move fast!

I got a lot of questions and they were very enthusiastic to know more about what’s going on in their home country. Hopefully when they finished their study, they will come home to help build the nation.

From my observation during my 6 days stay in London, meeting people from various industry who’ve been curious about Indonesia, I know that right now Indonesia has all the energy, the creativity, the human resources, the ‘problems’ aka opportunities to move forward, run faster and grow bigger.

Question is: would you be part of it?

Read the news about my visit in London.

Thanks to PPI London especially to Aziz and team, also Erditya Arfah for all the help and info while I’m in London. Hope to see you again!
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UWRF 2012: Poetry in the Making

With writing life becomes more interesting. Writing teaches to most of us that we are not looking at things as closely as we ought to and we are not understanding them as deeply as we ought. These days, we let life slide off us. -Ted Hughes

I travel to Bali for Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) 2012 just a day after I landed from my London trip. I went to UWRF with Lisa @asil, one of my best girls who also just back from San Francisco. So we both pretty much on jet lag state and that explains a lot of sleep happening and the case of missing Kecak dance in Friday afternoon :))

In UWRF 2012 I got a lot of inspirations from the talks, got the urge and sudden kick to get back writing fiction, or in this case, a novel. Knowing exactly how a good fiction would do to you: emotionally pushed you to the edge.

But I have other thing to get done this time. I came to Ubud with one goal in mind: to become a better poet. I mean, the lovely nature, beautiful culture, loving heart, and ‘Poetry in the Making’ book by Ted Huges are the best elements to write poetry.

Yesterday @talitazahrah asked me on twitter, what keeps you writing? Sometimes for your book, you just know the beginning and the end. You don’t have a middle. You don’t like to be in the middle. And you ended up abandoning your book because of that. Quoted from the book by Ted Hughes and proven by my own experience:

There is one correct way to write a novel: make it interesting by writing something that genuinely interest you. You can’t write about something in which you have no feeling. First simply writing, let your imagination go. Second, practise your observation. Hopefully photographic observation begins to come naturally. Once you got it going, it will invent itself and begin think for you. Characters will push their way into it. You only need to let it grow. Don’t be frightened to follow wherever the story leads, and keep your eyes and ears open. See and hear everything.

I must add the practical way to do it: have a map. Write a summary or outlines of your book. I usually use mind map to do this. You must know the big picture and you can work on the details later. That ‘map’ will help you when you’re ‘lost’ in your own story.

About poetry. My first ‘obsession’ with poetry came after I’m back from Dublin last year. I saw a lot of poetry book in their bookstore and I couldn’t find it in Indonesia. Poetry can moves me better than anything in the world. That’s why I started to write and self-published my own poetry book in NulisBuku.com >> Thinking of You. I’m preparing one more, a collection of poetry and instagram photos by my friend @Kreshna, hopefully will launched soon.

I bought Lisa a notebook with a snippet of Hamlet in the cover and a pen from Shakespeare Globe Theatre and I told her to fill that with poetry. She said, she couldn’t write poetry. I said, everybody can write poetry.

Poetic experience is the hour by hour effect on us of the weather; that’s why all of us can write poetry -Ted Hughes

These are the poetry I made while staying in Ubud and while waiting for my delayed flight up to 1am in the Ngurah Rai airport. Enjoy.

I Need You Like This, in My Life

I need you like this, in my life

Heart to heart

Comfort

Against the hardship and storm

Soothing

Like nothing’s going on

Paint our own imagination

Talk our own topics

Walk our own destinations

A place to rest

Be still and be okay

Flow

Just the way life is

I need you like this, in my life

Distance

Teach me how to be patient with distance

When it means your good mornings will be delayed

And good nights are said on the daylight

You think I want the complicated

Those kind of unity

Where we started to blend and forget ourselves

Yet the truth is, my heart want the simplest

I only need

A cup of tea

And your smile

Right in front of me

Desire

I climb your nose

With my fingers

Felt the curve of your lips

Read it like a lost braille poem

Word by word spelled: desire

I lean on your broad shoulder

You spark an abstract form of passion

As I move silently

Channeling the love, my love, our love

I’ll be Back

Not that I forgot my way home

I just want to sit here and enjoy

The swivel dance of the birds

The unseen little insects made harmonious sound

The stain of colors of red, purple, orange on the green

The flowing water on nearby pond

With lotus and lily pads

Resting on the delicate surface

Not that I ignore you and the problem we had

I just want to sit here for a while

Just be and embrace

The other beauty God created for me

Just wait for me

I’ll be back

Imaginary Lover

We exchange smile

Thru our eyes

And you look away

Your soft lashes

Wink to the empty air

Left a little trace of your shiny attitude

That never fails to pull me

Toward you

I want to know the story

You’ve been keeping in the distance

Of our skin

And I want you to conclude

The thing we had

All these years

She walked closer

And take your hand away from me

You said unspoken good bye

And I freeze in the land that carry my feet

Try to keep my balance off the shattering pieces

Of my heart

The rain pour to my cheek

Making its way to my chin

And that’s the very moment I knew;

The thing I thought we had

Has silently died

The Thought of You

Does your heart send a signal?

I read your name carved

In the airport tiles

While I’m waiting and my eyes wander

Trying to walk again the path we had

In my head

By London canals where I can’t see the rocky way

I tripped

And your hand and your eyes

Catch me

Heaven

If you can describe heaven

Better than this rice field view

With coconut trees and summer breeze

You might as well fascinate me

I have some other intrepretation of heaven

That you can or not, accept

Maybe still the same blue sky and the green yellowish field

But in my mind, I can see little purple roses in rainbow river

Streaming down on

The cheerful valley

You see, all the crazy images in me

Floating out, only

When I remember thee

One Afternoon in Piccadilly

One afternoon in Piccadilly

We got lost without admitting we were lost

Walking and pointing at a Thai Massage parlor

Distracted by a group of street musician

Agreed to stop and grab a pizza before we continue the journey

Your eyes locked to mine

We even ignored the waiter

And they brought us two cups of peppermint tea

It’s cold outside and the warmth that we sip

Race thru our blood

Your cheek blushed

As I kissed your cold hands

And lay them in my heart

We enjoy the time in total silence

And waiting

‘Til one of us get enough

Of each other

I know we never will
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Start Your Own Social Enterprise

“In 100 years, we will not be known for our technological advances; rather we will be known for how we used technology to tackle some of humanity’s biggest challenges.” ~ Adnan Mahmud, Co-Founder Jolkona.org

I had the privilege to attend @AdnanMahmud session at @atamerica when he was visiting Indonesia last week. In a way, I felt that I always wanted to use technology to create a high impact solution for problems in society. And I think Adnan and I are sharing the same vision.

I co-found NulisBuku.com 2 years ago to help young writers in Indonesia express themselves thru Self-Publishing. Right now we had more than 20,000 aspiring writers on our website NulisBuku.com and 2000 books has been self-published.

Indonesia need to double our annual books published to catch up with other countries. That means, 4,000 books need to come out monthly, 4,000 ideas need to released, 100 millions young people in Indonesia need to be inspired!!!

Anyway… *sorry I got carried away*

Adnan explained on how to start a startup. He said, in order to start you have to:

Learn about yourself
Find your passion
Form a supportive group
Connect with a role model
Dedicate to learning

Then after that you have to answer these 5 questions:

Do you have customers?
Would you use the product?
Why should it be you to build this now?
What is the path of least resistance?
Who is your team?

Adnan share us his life story as a guy who came from Bangladesh to pursue his dreams in USA. When he’s being successful and working in Microsoft, at one point he felt like he’s losing the point of all his success when he can’t help more people.

4 months ago he resigned from Microsoft and dedicate his time fully on his Jolkona.org and Geocko.com. Jolkona is a platform that connects you with global philanthropic opportunities and shows the impact of your donations. Hey, Jolkona is also on Pinterest!

The way Adnan told his story was really moving and inspiring, even for someone who’s already done everything he said like me, I am still super inspired (I swear I almost cry on the spot) and so did everyone else in the room.

The feeling of knowing that you’ve made a difference is rewarding. I know you’re inspired to start your own startup, especially social enterprise right now. So, what are you waiting for?

 
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‘Yes, You Can!’ Make Your Dreams Come True

It’s been 8 years since I published my first book. And last Saturday, September 15th, 2012, I launched my 25th book called, ‘Yes, You Can!‘ at Universitas Indonesia’s library. Thanks @NouraBooks and @UI_Library for making it happen.

It was a mixed feelings. I still can’t believe that there are people coming to an event just for me (and my book). I still can’t believe that thousands of people already read my books. I still can’t believe many things that happened to me, the person I’ve evolved to be.

I have changed from a regular ordinary student in my teens, to someone who has build high impact tech startups like NulisBuku.com, write 25 books, have my own boutique and named one of 50 inspiring people selected by editor in chiefs in Intisari Magazine this year, before I reach 30 years old.

I got a lot of questions from “How you do it in such a young age?” “How you can finished writing that many books?” “How to start?” “How to eliminate fear of starting?” etc.

I also met a lot of inspiring and successful people. I make sure I surround myself with those positive and supporting friends or new friends. I make a habit that everytime I meet them, I will notice their qualities and even asked them about the secret of their success, what is their values  in life.

My observation towards life, the answers of my successful friends about their success principal, the answers to the most asked questions for me, are all there in my new book, ‘Yes, You Can!’

For the launching event purpose, I invite my followers to share their #YesYouCan moments. Here are some of them:

‏@NyiPeDe@NouraBooks My #YesYouCan, menjadi TKW pula mewujudkan mimpi saya membangun pondok sederhana untuk ibu, kami tdk lgi kontrak :’)

@andifacino15 my #YesYouCan moment: mendapatkan motivasi dari @nulisbukuuntuk menerbitkan buku, dan akhirnya sudah menerbitkan lima buku.

@iiphcheMy #YesYouCan Moment: lulus spmb, komunikasi UI, di saat banyak org yg menganggap remeh dan bilang impian gue impossible. Thx to @FhiaFT

I am very pleased to let you know that this book has inspire many young people to do something with their life and they write to me to express that.

@kasihdita Mbak Ollie, bukunya keren! Hope I can be like you one day

@WangiMS Eh suka dengan part Susi, si office girl di #YesYouCan nya mbak @salsabeela. Nice!

@DianRuZZ ”Appreciating People” di #YesYouCan nya Ollie kereeenn ^__^

@kretarianto I’ve read your #yesyoucan book. It’s a burst coming out from the hidden chest, inspirative!! Great job, Ollie!

Some of my readers write about it in their blogs:

http://erlrights.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/yes-you-can/

http://www.rawinah-ranarty.com/2012/08/yes-you-can.html

http://navika-anggun.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-book-yes-you-can-by-ollie.html

So, if you’re curious, buy ‘Yes, You Can!‘ on your favorite bookstore (if you buy in Kutukutubuku.com you’ll get 15% OFF and my signature on the book). After you read, please mention me @salsabeela with your comment and rate & review the book in GoodReads or your blog.

All your dreams will come true. Yes, You Can!
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Inspiring Teacher

Who’s your most inspiring teacher?

That is the question we asked on NulisBuku.com & Biovision’s writing competition with theme: Vision for Education in Indonesia: Gratitude to My Teacher. It got 200++ short stories submitted in less than 2 weeks. And finally we announce 3 winners, @Aida_aie @Steve_Me_Pure @Wuri27to experience free traveling to Belitung Islands in the launching event. I represent @nulisbuku, with @mata_Biovisionteam, accompany them to enjoy Belitung.

I tried to act like a private writing coach for Aida, Steve and Wuri during the trip. They can ask anything about writing to me. From our conversation, I know a little bit about them. Aida already has a published book, Wuri used to work in media, and Steve.

Steve is a sports teacher. There are 2 reasons he participated in the writing competition. First, he wants to prove that a sports teacher (who related with physical education) can also write. Second, he wants his students to see that they can do anything they want in life, if they try. I am so impressed with Steve’s burning determination. He won a writing competition and surely, he’s one of the inspiring teachers!

In Belitung, we enjoy the beauty of the islands, and also meet one of the most inspiring teachers in Indonesia: Ibu Muslimah. She’s the teacher of best selling author Andrea Hirata, who wrote a based on true story novel ‘Laskar Pelangi’ about his school and his inspiring teacher. The book  finally turned into a movie and since then has helped boost the tourism side of Belitung. I personally think that’s what a writer should do, to inspire, one person at a time.

Meeting bu Muslimah was another inspiring moment for us. She’s a true teacher. Showing us around her house, looking at pictures of her life as a new ‘icon’ in education. Many people has inspired by the story of Laskar Pelangi, and the inspiration touch people differently. Bu Muslimah said, there are a lot of people suddenly hug her when she was at events, and they would tell her how their life changing because of the book and the inspiration from her story. She said, this is beyond her wildest imagination, she never expect something like this could happen in her life: a teacher from an elementary school in a small village of a small town in Indonesia can inspire people around the world. Masha Allah! Anything is possible!

Thank you Biovision team, Bu Ermi & Mas Rahmat, for all the support during and after the competition. And also @BelitungLiburan who organize the trip. It was a pleasure working with @mata_biovision& @BelitungLiburan!

So, friends: start writing, start inspiring. Have a productive day!

 
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AirAsia ASEAN

AirAsia ASEAN, the regional base of AirAsia, was officially launched in Jakarta, August 7th 2012. My comment is only one: what took you so long

I have a lot of ‘romantic’ memories with AirAsia. With AirAsia, I took my first ASEAN trip with my bestfriends to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. All with a very low promo price, because AirAsia promise us that ‘everyone can fly’. Now, more people, indeed, can fly.

Now AirAsia add their commitment to ASEAN region, the home of 600 million people and huge market, and launched their office in Jakarta, near the headquarter of ASEAN secretariat. You can see AirAsia ambitious vision with ASEAN market when they flew us 3 years ago to 3 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand) in one day on ASEAN day. It was a very cool experience.

Behind a visionary airline, there must be an inspiring CEO. And the guy is Tony Fernandes. Not only AirAsia ASEAN find home in Jakarta, but also Tony. He’s moving here. It’s his dream to stay in Jakarta, he said (Well, me too. But I have achieved it 12 years ago, Tony hehehe). With their own office, now the management team of AirAsia can fully focus to handle the ASEAN region. And I hope that means new routes to new exotic places in ASEAN.

AirAsia just open new route to Clark, Philippines. I guess my desire to visit Boracay will soon come true. To celebrate AirAsia ASEAN they just make a special campaign from 7-12 August 2012. Go check their website or ask @aseanita about it.

Happy traveling!

 
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The Prince and I – Le Mans Story

When Abdellatif from @MasjidRoadTrip explained to me about a grand event happening in Le Mans, I thought it was an Islamic event. Because we were just talking about his trip with his wife Hassana, going around Paris / Medina / Mecca / Abu Dhabi / Delhi / Shanghai / Tokyo / Kuala Lumpur / Bandar Seri Begawan / Bali / Jakarta visiting 80 Masjids to follow the trace of Ibn Battuta. We met over dinner in Jakarta, talking about their amazing trip, and I also share on how I do it with PinkMosques. They’re very inspiring and a very romantic Muslim couple! I want to do something like this with my future husband, insha Allah!

Anyway, that was when they were in Jakarta. Fast forward, couple of weeks later, I visited the couple in their hometown, Le Mans, 2 hours train trip from Paris. Like I said, I thought they’re inviting me for a huge Islamic event in Le Mans. Saphia, my French buddy who was coming with me to Le Mans, said that she didn’t know any Islamic event in Le Mans. “As far as I know, there’s a big car race event in Le Mans.”

I didn’t remember Abdel was saying anything about car race, or did I puzzling myself. But when we walked out of the train station and saw a big sign of 24 Heures de Mans (24 hours Le Mans), I was pretty much sure, that my black abaya, is not the right outfit for (watching) a race car.

So if you were watching the race around Circuit de la Sarthe and happened to see a Muslim woman in head to toe black, wearing slipper, limping (I hurt my feet from too much walking, remember) in the crowd of car lovers that 95% men: she was definitely me.

After returning our Pizza twice because it has bacon slices in it, we finally finished our lunch and enjoying our time looking at fancy cars around the car race area. We walked from stand to stand and touching some cool sport cars, taking pictures, fighting the best spot to take picture with a 5 years old boy, had our hands painted in Bahrain’s stand :))

“Come Ollie, we move closer to see your Prince!” Abdel lead the way.

The Prince he was referring to was the handsome prince AbdulAziz Turki AlFaisal who’s participating in 24 hours Le Mans endurance racing.

(image from crankandpiston.com)

So there we were, the 4 of us, Abdel, Hassana, Me and Saphia, would scream like crazy teens (okay maybe only me screaming), whenever Prince Faisal’s green Porsche coming our way. And everybody like glancing with the corner of their eyes, ‘what the hell is happening with these people’ :))

“Ollie, when the Prince come, you should jump with a ‘Marry Me’ sign!!” Abdel said in a high tone excited voice.

“Abdel… I appreciate your advice, but no. Thanks.”

No, I don’t ended up marrying the Prince nor had dinner with him because I had to get back to Paris to enjoy Seine Cruise and he has 24 hours race to finished, but I really really enjoy my few hours in Le Mans. Thanks a lot Abdel & Hasana for being a wonderful host, showing me your beautiful house, making me peppermint tea fresh from your garden, inviting me to watch the race (it’s my first experience watching race car, so it was a precious experience!), showing me around the lovely Le Mans old town. And also thanks for taking me to Le Mans Masjid and telling me that there are only 10 Muslims in Le Mans. You guys make me count every hijabi I saw in the street, “Look! 2 Hijabis! I can’t believe I met 4 out of 10 Muslims in Le Mans!” (Pleasant surprise was when I immediately spotted 2 Halal restaurant just in front of the train station).

I definitely will go back to Le Mans one day, and that day I must take long peaceful walk along the rocky road, sit in a little cafe overlooking the city, with my real life Prince and spend all day, write him poetry. As many as necessary.

 
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Life After Divorce

I’m reading Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, a novel about her divorce back in 1980′s and I ended up browsing in the internet about her and her books. Then I stumble upon this website, it’s Huffington Post Divorce section. They have some interesting articles about after divorce life and I thought maybe I want to share my own story.

Divorce is a little doomsday for me. It was financially, socially, and mentally shattering. I’ve been together with my ex husband for a total 10 years before we divorce. I never see this coming. I thought he was the love of my life. It struck us so fast that when we finally divorced, maybe we still didn’t know what hit us.

Now after almost 2 years divorced, I can look back and see what’s been happening after the divorce.

Living alone was totally not my plan. We build a house together and of course plan things with the house, but the plan was not happening. It’s me and me alone in the house. I keep all his belongings. I keep his wedding ring, his razor blade, his screwdrivers, his towel, his magazines, I kept everything he left at the house, I didn’t touch it for months. I don’t know. Maybe deep inside I want to feel his presence all around me so I won’t feel alone. Then one day, my mom got fed up and bring big boxes, throw everything there, and put it away.

My mom also call the handyman to finished my kitchen. The kitchen was left undone because I was very lazy to deal with it. It was my dream kitchen where I plan to cook new recipes for my husband. It’s the best part of the house. And when our relationship scattered, my kitchen dream is also vanished with it. Thank God, with the help of mom, I manage to finished the kitchen and it looks nice now. It’s some sort of marking my moving on period.

My moving on period then officially started with me reading a lot of books about love and relationship (how to make a man love you in 30 seconds kind of book), mind you, being alone again after 10 years of relationship can make you really really insecure. How’s the situation in today’s market?? I must learn fast to keep up!! :)) And it’s very hard to buy those kind of books. Because sometimes you felt the cashier guy was judging you for the selection of books you’re going to pay. So sometimes, to buy one nasty title book on relationships, I need to buy another 4 regular books to get the cashier distracted and maybe somehow think I’m not buying the book for me, but for my friend.

Anyway. There are things you just realized missing after divorce. Something like: where you’re gonna send your ‘boarding now babe’ message before flight (finally I send it to my parents, minus the ‘babe’), how to open those hard-to-open-sometimes Pulpy Orange’s bottle in the middle of the night, nobody’s there to upgrade your iOS, something’s wrong with your PC or laptops or TV and you don’t know where to ask (it used to be magically fixed), the sounds of him sleeping, still feeling like buying coffees for him when I shop groceries (I don’t drink coffee), not to mention those mini heart attacks every time I found our old pictures together all over Facebook. Those little things.

I started to keep myself busy doing something that I like. So I don’t have time to think about the past. I went home tired from meetings and wake up rushing to office. I am blessed with the ability to sleep and eat in whatever situation. Despite that fact, I lose a lot of weight due to my heart misery that eating me from within. I lose 10 kgs and suddenly I can wear the cutest dress I always want to wear. So I start experimenting with fashion. With makeup as well. I travel more. Meeting new people thru organizations and companies that I build. Hang out with new friends. Grow on new level in spirituality. Then after a year, I can feel the transformation happening to me. Everybody admit that I look different. I even look like I had plastic surgery LOL. I didn’t know what’s happened, but I’m changed. I become the better me.

After reaching that level of quality and feeling I have generate more love to share, I started to think about having a new companion in my life. And I’m so serious about this I even make a list of what I want in my next love. The experience of meeting new men is totally enriching. I learned new personalities that not neccesarily the same with me. Learn to understand other people in their perspective. And learn to accept that since I’m no longer the old me, the quality of men that I met somehow shocking, in a good way :)) So I enjoyed the process. I’m grateful for the chance to continue on with my life.

Do I still friends with my ex? The answer is yes. Last month I contact him to ask, after years, what was happening back then in our marriage. This is the best time to ask and to learn from each other after emotion and anger has faded away. He’s still a kind of best friend I would have in life. He used to be a part of me and this can’t be change. I believe each people sent to us, carry different values and purposes in our life. For me and him, I believe each of our tasks in each other life has over and we need to be in other people’s life with a different purpose now. And we must let go, let life flows.

I believe we both is happy now with our new life. I have no regret, because I have done everything to save our marriage, and it was not working. And now my attitude toward life is this: I want to live in the moment and live it to the fullest.

So far, life has brought me delightful surprises and I can’t wait to unfold next gifts, God prepare for me.

 
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From Bincang Edukasi 09: Explore Your Dreams

When I was attending Bincang Edukasi 09 with inspiring speakers: Salma Rahman (storytelling as education tool), Harini TunjungSari (dance as education tool), Monika Irawati @irra22 talk about visual thinking for children,  @ivanlanin talk about Wikipedia as education source, last but not least, Ratna Djuwita (lecturer/psychologist) talk about bullying in school, I thought, this is exactly what I needed when I was a child: a creative learning.

I’m impressed with Picture Me Indonesia. Mbak @irra22 explained about how @PictureMeIndo try to help children explore their uniqueness and strength to eventually explore their dreams.

This is what I had in mind when last year I was speaking at a writing workshop, asking children to write about their dream, and they’re confused. They don’t have a dream, they don’t know what they want to do when they grow up, they simply worry about today, and it’s breaking my heart because when you’re a child, you supposed to dream as high, as crazy, as enormous as possible.

Then Mbak Ira share to us about students at @PictureMeIndo.

Meet Tata. She has a dream to published her own comic book, and launch it. She made and visualize her plan. Do it one step at a time. And finally, after just 7 months, she successfuly realized her dream, in exactly the same way as what she has imagined! (She draw people lining up to get her signature, and that’s exactly what’s happened)

This is Jingga. She’s going to published an autobiography about 9 years of her life. She’s preparing the outline and going to write it soon!

I am so amazed. These kids has been enjoying their time playing and learning in the same time, finding the path to their bigger dreams, to a better life.

As they have found their passion, have you find what you’ve been looking for?

Bincang Edukasi was founded in 2011 by education concerned people (including me and my best buddy @Kreshna). We made Bincang Edukasi bimonthly meetup (Bined), brainstormed in Jakarta & Surabaya, started in Surabaya, now spreading to big cities in Indonesia like Bandung and Jakarta. The main objective of the meetup was to invite great ‘teacher’ in society and let them inspire us, parents, teachers, education-enthusiasts, to adopt their techniques or to do our own educational movements for better Indonesia. Check our hashtag #twitedu and twitter @bincangedukasi for updates on our next events.

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