quite an exciting week :)

Last week, I finally got the chance to actually start my Adobe Photoshop lessons, which I'd been wanting to do for years and had been procrastinating for years too hehe... Kinda hope I could post the pics right here but my tutor's compie's got some viruses in that I, being a paranoic, had opted to wait till the compie's clean to copy the files...

Anyways, I've been through 3 classes so far and have been very excited about it. (Haven't gone to classes like this for a ong long time). Only 2 classes left. Quite upset about it, but I've learnt really a lot about Adobe P/S (not an expert yet) but it's really exciting how you can do so many things with Adobe P/S. There are lots of crazy geniuses out there in the world. We can slim someone down by 10kgs just by a few clicks away. We could 'heal' people's bad skin problems (even really2 bad one like.. hm... think 'scarface' bad) simply by playing around with the 'healing brush' tools... Wowww wish we could do that in real life... I might sound so 'outdated' by saying this, but I'm so amazed I don't care, "ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I wish I could master it soon... which I doubt since it does need a high level patience, like the one you need with meditation you see... I meant it! I see it that way!

Another great first thing that I did last week was attending a 'gathering' organized by Bella Donna The Wedding (the most popular wedding magazine in Indonesia). I was so thrilled when I got the invitation (again, this might sound cheesy, but hey I'm new in the industry, so it's only normal that being invited to this kind of thing quite matters to me). So I put on my new red shoes (well I bought it 1.5 years ago but never got the chance to wear it, so it's still technically new), then I went and enjoy (Oh I put on other apparels too like white shirts and jeans, not just the shoes, sorry if I misled you in any way).

Overall, It was a very fun party, especially when we won in a game where we got to design a bridal gown out of newspapers in a group of 6 people (we've got Halim the video guy as our team leader who was just lucky to be made the model for our bridal gown). We got the "Snow White" theme which we executed very well, except the FROG-origami/newspaper that Tahbar insisted belonged to the "Snow White", which I didn't argue at that time due to my 'ignorance' to fairy tales. But luckily noone protested when I proudly declared our so-thought creative frog idea to the public. I only knew later when Hocky ensured me that there was no FROG watsoever from "SNOW WHITE". Which was later also rectified by Mira (Tahbar's girlfriend). Shame on u, Tahbar Yabik Junus. hahahaha.... But I honestly enjoyed the silly frog part. It added to the 'fun'ness of the whole night. I recall the MC was even commenting "Wowwww very creative idea" once I uttered the frog thingy when I was 'present'ing our winning design... hahahahaha...

Anyhow, it was very fun to engage in a fun group game after such a long exhaustive process of focusing in growing up. And of course, especially that we WON!!! It's been so long since I won something. The last time I won something was probably 5-6 years ago back in Melbourne for some subjects I took at Swinburne. IT WAS SO FUN!!! Tahbar also admitted it was damn fun. Well he was in my winning team too. So perhaps if you asked the other attendees, they wouldn't have the same comment on the party. HA HA! Like I care...

On Saturday, I got to see my hubby after 5 days of missing him (He had to go out of town for a few days for work), so inescapably a good weekend :)

Oh I forgot to mention, last Monday, I got this GUYLIAN Chocolate souvenir from my new clients back from Melbourne, Jowan & Yuni. They're only gonna be in Medan for 2 weeks, so I've been busy having meetings with them too this last week. Thanx for the chocolate guys. I love the ones with the hazelnut the most. Australia's very good with their chocolate. Objection, anyone?

great-movie weekend...

After all the hecticness all week, wat a better way to enjoy ur weekend than to totally slack ur ass off.

Got up later than usual (ie. in the afternoon instead of the usual just-after-midday for me), took showers, went out for short meals takeaways (in sleeping shorts - to go with the slack-ur-ass-off mood), got online with no specific purposes, chatted myself away on msn, refreshed the email inbox for like 17 times a day eventhou noone's emailing except a bunch of spams & some promotions from some airlines, watched dvds, oh and blogged too apparently.

For some it might seem like a weekend wasted. But I like my weekends like this. (you see, I dun get to enjoy weekends like this a lot). Oh and the really2 good part is I also got to spend a lot of time with dear hubby. Anyways, watched 3 movies this weekend so far. 2 very good ones and 1 very silly one. The picked movies for this weekend were...

1. The Kite Runner, a movie based on a novel by an Afghan, Khaled Hosseini. We've heard about how great the novel was but were too lazy to read novels nowadays so we decided to take the shortcut & go for the movie straightaway. A 5-star movie if you asked me, I can't find anything to complain about the movie (I am normally quite a movie-complainer). In fact, one of the best movies in my dictionary. The movie was so beautiful and it's got many strong characters. A movie with a really 'biting' moral story. The plot was very interesting all the way, despite its 2hours-7mins-51secs duration. However, I read somewhere that the movie didn't do the novel enough justice. I might have to beat my slackness and made myself read the novel. For a more reliable review & comprehensive synopsis, you gotta search the Internet though. I'm afraid I'd just turn u off with my unprofessional writing. All I'd dare to say is dat it's not a movie you wanna miss.

2. Ah Long Pte Ltd, a very silly Singaporean movie by Jack Neo (who else?). The movie is full of crappy practical jokes. You know, the Jack-Neo style lah... If you are in the mood for a quality movie, DO NOT GO for this movie... I bought the dvd just becoz of Mark Lee, I dunno why, but I've always found him entertaining. Overall, NOT a good movie. I won't even give it a star.

3. The Great Debaters. A based-on-a-true-story movie by Denzel Washington. Need I say more? Go buy this dvd!!! A 4.5-star at least in my opinion.

You know how it made you happy every time you finished watching a great movie? The great thing about watching movies is that it takes you to places you can only imagine in your heart, or even places you would never imagine. Like in The Great Debaters, there was this scene on the lake somewhere in this forest (sorry I'm not good at verbally drawing pictures), I bet it'll awe you and make you wish you had some place like that near where you live that you could always go with your loved one or even by yourself. See the movie, you'll see what I mean.

Anyways, apart from the great movies that filled in our weekend, I un-usually took pictures of one of our takeaways, it's the 'GU BAK KWETIAU' from Jalan Singa. Ha Ha Wills, I've finally got something here worth staying for (part of my self-deceiving scheme). Please for once wish that you trade life with us here in Medan (so we feel like at least we have something someone else couldn't get hahaha)

Mari kita persembahkan... the takeaway GUBAK KWETIAU AAN... Tarraaaa........

MEDAN VS MELBOURNE

Last night, I came across Willson&Wenty's blog on the differences between settling down in Australia & Singapore. I myself am a very big fan of Melbourne. Throughout reading his page, I thought it would be fun to write one with comparison on Medan & Melbourne. Since I've so been missing Melbourne lately, this could be a very good temporary outlet.

I'm not a very good writer, so I'll just copy & paste Willson's points and start from there. Please feel free to add your 2cents on this matter. I'm quite curious wat society thinks about this :)

Work:

Melbourne: Higher salaries, better environment (shorter hours and more leaves), workers have more rights. Howard is doing his best to take them away though. (Quoted from Willson)

Medan: The salaries are quite attractive at very2 few companies, but more often than not, you can't really survive just by 'working'. If you work on the average salary and don't own a business, hmmm... I think the simplest way to tell you how bad it is to 'work' in Medan is this. The 'legal' minimum base salary in Medan is around Rp.925.000,-/mo. (+-AU$110,-/mo). You do the math. However, I heard it is much easier to build a business here in Medan compared to Melbourne since things are easy here, as long as you got money to help you slip your way through the rough paths. So I don't think it's even valid to compare 'work' in Aus & 'work' in Medan. But businesswise, I guess more opportunities to rise in Medan?

Housing:

Melbourne: Obviously much more expensive. You have to pay taxes very very accordingly.

Medan: Houses are much much less pricey. No one pays taxes as they should *grins.. 1 point for Medan!!!

Food:

Melbourne: Has authentic foods from all over the world, by authentic I mean the chefs who prepare them are either from those countries or descendant of migrants from there. (quoted from Willson). I might also add, desserts are unbeatable, both Oriental and Western styles.

Medan: Cheaper foods. Hardly any decent western food restaurants here. But all the local Chinese & Indonesian-originated foods are very very very good. Hygiene-wise, I don't think there's a need to verify further. Oh also, desserts are near hopeless. I am raising my hopes on some new cakeries here thou.

Overall, 1 point for Melbourne (The hygiene & desserts factors kill Medan right-on)

House chores:

Melbourne: Labor is expensive, you have to do everything yourselves unless you are filthy rich! (quoted from Willson)

Medan: You surely don't have to be filthy rich to hire 'helps' around the clock. On average, every house has at least 1 housemaid and 1 chauffeur. You could also very often find a house with 2-4 maids, more than 1 chauffeur, a landscape technician ('tukang kebun'), a 'bibi cuci' (yes, some ppl hire an extra 'maid' to do their laundry at home) , and 1 babysitter for each baby. And you don't have to be 'filthy rich' to enjoy all that. All that luxury mentioned above only add up to something like AU$700-AU$900 a month. I guess it's an undisputed 1 point for Medan here?

Transport:

Melbourne: Car is slightly cheaper, public transport is wayyyyyyyy better than Indonesia. Petrols are wayyy more expensive though...

Medan: *sighssssss........................... I don't think it's even worth the discussion, unless you think becak, sudako, damri, are anything near decency.

1-1

Health care:

Melbourne: Everyone (citizens and PRs) is covered by Medicare. Waiting list can be long for non life threatening surgeries under public system though so many people have private health insurance anyway. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: Health insurance is provided by very few companies. No such thing as Medicare I believe? Oops sorry, I guess they have Jamsostek here? Is that thing even functional? Never mind, I don't think anyone would mind me scoring 1 point for Melbourne here.

Government:

Melbourne: Democratic government, freedom of speech, people can openly criticize and complain against the government of the day without fear of reprisals. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: Hopeless... In this so-called 'democratic' goverment, I don't think knowing your governor's name is even necessary. Here's an idea of how bad it is. Our latest Walikota & Wakil (Mayor & the vice) are currently in jail for some corruption matters. (can't even care less about the details). SOLID 1 for Melbourne.

Crime Rate:

Melbourne: Pretty safe, I have never been robbed/assaulted/burglared in my eight years here (touch wood). It does happen though, and certainly more often than in Singapore. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: MINUS 100 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Racism:

Melbourne: My worst experience is limited to minor inconvenient like having a couple of idiots yelling racist taunts as they drive past. Under Howard and his fear mongering policies, Australia is becoming more mean and less tolerant though. His fear mongering is currently directed at Muslims so it doesn't really affect us yet. Considering our economy is highly dependent on resources export to China I can't imagine him driving his fear policy against Chinese anytime soon, but you never know. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: What was the 1998 hugely tragic riot all about again? (MINUS 1000 POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Migrant treatment:

Can't compare AT ALL! No one migrates to Indonesia... This must be most invalid point of all, Wills..

Taxes:

Melbourne: One of the highest income taxes in the world. It obviously depends on your incomes, deductions etc. You can expect to pay up to A$26k tax on A$100k annual salary in 2008/2009 financial year. GST is 10%. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: No one pays their taxes accordingly. I doubt a lot of people would know the official income tax rate here. Anyone?

Travel:

Melbourne: Far from everywhere, airfares alone are so expensive. Very strong A$ stretches further when traveling overseas. Plenty of domestic holiday destinations. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: As Willson pointed out, "Exotic destinations in their backyard within S E Asia." But damn the never-strengthening Rupiahs! 1 point for Melbourne!!!

Weather:

Melbourne: 4 seasons in a year, heck Melbourne is renowned of having 4 seasons in a day. We get the snows in the mountain and the ocassional crazy 40+ degree days in summer. (quoted from Willson)

Medan: They say we have 2 seasons here, the hot season & the rainy season. I think the more precise way to put it is, we have only 1 season here, the hot season. Then you categorize the hot season into two sub-seasons, the hot-hot season, and the rainy-hot season. Objection, anyone? So I guess if you are a person with heat-resistant nature, vote for Melbourne straightaway then go away in summers, or buy the coolest aircon available in the market.

Social life:

As this is a very relative subject, I'll do my evaluation based on my own social background.

Melbourne: Fewer friends, but I was there for 4.5 years, so I made quite a few very good friends :) (PS:Miss you very much guys...) The Ozzies in general are very friendly and talky. They are the sort of people who would smile or say 'hi' to strangers, (or rather, 'G'day!'). Plenty of nightclubs, a lot of decent cinemas. BUTTTTTTTT, shoppings close at 5PM except on Fridays and Thursdays in some suburbs.

Medan: 95% of the people I know live here. Sometimes, people 'care' about other people too much (if you could sense my writing 'tone'). Some really do, most just 'do'. People tend to have similar lives. You get born, you finish high-schools, finish college, get married and have a big wedding attended by hundreds of strange faces, start a family, do business for life, travel just for the sake of it, then die without any accomplishments other than those in family business. The options for variations in life are not many too. Since if you don't do business, you can't really survive most of the time. And to do business, you'll need to sacrifice a big fraction of your life. At the end of the day, you don't have much time to explore new things anymore.