Confession of a Shopaholic!

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Why oh why today I feel like blogging again and again and again! I’m so in a mood ;) Well, I’m going to make a confession, I’ve been back to Jakarta for 3 weeks and you know what, I’ve spent too much on buying things! I’ve just checked my bank account through internet banking and goodness! I can’t even write down the number I’ve spent within these 3 weeks! Shopping was really burned a hole on my pocket, I need to do a serious saving, or else, I’ll be broke to the bones! *sobsob*

But HOW? I don’t have any idea, at all. Moreover, see, tomorrow I’m going out, for a date-a movie, lunch and maybe I’ll join my housemate for a dinner, well, I don’t know, we’ll see tomorrow. I just couldn’t believe, how easy I spent on something way too much, while couple months ago, I could resisted the temptation of buying this and that, for iPhone’s sake!

Let’s blame the Jakarta Great Sale event, you know, three days after I back in town, I went out with my Medan’s friend, Ellen to TA and Central Park, new mall, located right next to TA. It’s opened for quite a long time, but I never had a chance to pay a visit, so yeah, we went there. Starting with looked around for every corner of this new mall, then had lunch, then *small voice* we decided to do window-shopping, but hey! Zara’s off up to 50% what a great deal!

How could you resist that temptation? You tell me! I know if I didn’t decide to go out on the first place, I can avoid of me buying so many things that actually I don’t really need, but yeah, I’ll be stuck 24/7 stuck in boredom, and stuck in my room just like what is happening to me now! I need a fresh air, so it’s not a crime if I decided to go out, once in a while, right or right? :p

here's the Zara dress that I bought :) 

Well, then we tried this and that. I ended up bought a dress and long-sleeve blouse. Here’s an excuse, I gave my Zara sweater to mum, because it’s oversized to me, so, I need a replacement, make sense, to you? :p That’s why I bought that long-sleeve blouse, with an extra-gift to myself, a dress. It’s lovely, and actually it’s quite big to me it’s “S” size already, they don’t have the “XS” anymore, but I love the dress so I took it. :p

I came home with stuffed belly and two pieces of clothes but my total spending that day costs me more than half of my monthly allowance! Then the weekend came. I went out with my housemate, two days in a row, Saturday and Sunday. To satisfy our desire in culinary hunting, we had our lunch at “Kopi Tiam Oe”. The place is small, designed with oldie theme. The interior design didn’t impress me much, but the food is superb! Everything that we ordered tasted so good. I might want to come back here to taste another menu. Sadly, if you visit it by lunch time, you can only ordered foods on “lunch” section on the menu, so does if you come at brunch time or dinner or even supper time.

The prices are very reasonable, quite cheap, I think, because the portion is big and food tasted delicious, but looks less appetizing. Anyway, right after that, we went to PI, EX and GI. We had an issue while finding cab that’d took us there. It’s quite hard to find a cab and the taxi driver was very rude! Okay, forget about it! I’m not going to discuss it here. It gives me tense!

Here we go again, shop till drop!! I don’t know, for what I can remembered, I only bought this little things and another little things, but in the end, it costs too much on me. SIGH!! We also went to Casablanca to buy some DVDs and some more things and oh yeah! I finally got my portable cutlery set with reasonable price. On Sunday, we ate at Sushi Tei, to satisfy our sushi-craving! Oh yeah, I also did a macaron-hunting while I visited these malls. Thanked God, this little cutie French biscuit is hard to find, or else, I’ll ended up broke to the bones just to buy this little stuff! The price is killing! It’s damn expensive! SIGH!! But I just can’t stop buying them, every time I went to somewhere and I see these macs! :D

Well, the story of “Claustrawberry the shopaholic” is not ending here. Two days ago, I went to GI, PI, EX again. You know why! To buy my Harry Potter movie tickets and black shoes. I was trying to find a black heels or Zara pumps, but I couldn’t find something that makes my heart fall for them. So I decided to buy it at Charles & Keith. No more sale and discount! HIKS!! So, I bought it with normal price which is quite expensive! Well, okay, I’ve told mum about this! This shoes is for work, so it’s okay, moreover, dearie with his kind heart pay it for me. FYI, I’m not kind of girl who loves to ask something from my boyfriend, or ask him buying this and that for me, and he said take it as a gift from his first salary and because he said he never buying me anything, I have to accept it! Are you kidding me, honey? I don’t need that, dear! And who said so? You already gave so many things to me, the precious one, which are your caring and love to me ;) but I guess, for this time, I do really really need it, so I’ll take it. Oh darling, thank you so so much for this! I’ll pay you once I have an extra money, next month, it’s few days away! Won’t take too long, besides, his birthday is near, so I’ll prepare something special just for you. ;)

Hmmm… enough for my confession! Please forgive me, for being such a shopaholic.. LOL :p Btw, one of my besties, Steffi is in town! We’re both are alike, or maybe she’s worst *sorry dear, if you read this* :p We’re going to rock the malls next week, thanked God it’s new month. I don’t know what is going to happen! As we already planned to go out for shopping, food and macarons hunting, movies and a lot of meet up to chat and take bunch of pics etc. :p I do really really need to find job! So, I can do all these stuffs with no regrets! :p

Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase. ---Erma Bombeck.

Over the Edge

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Hola! How's life recently? I hope you all had a very great time, unlike mine. Life’s currently flat and I’m stuck in boredom. Thanked God it’s Friday now-I thought yesterday was Friday, you know! How silly!-I always love weekend, since my dearie and all my friends are working now, so they’ll be free during weekends. And that’s the only time, I can really enjoy my day. And here’s the good news, for all movie junkies or let’s say potter freak, today’s a historical day for Hollywood’s film industry in Indonesia! You should remember this day. After banned-Hollywood-movies policy in Indonesia, finally today, you can watch a good movie in Indonesia. Yeah, and you as a potter freak should be proud! It's simply because they are finally screening “Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows” movie as a warm welcome to Hollywood movies! I doubt if it's not because of "Harry Potter" they'll still postpone showing us a good movie. Anyway, how are you, Kung-fu Panda, Pirates of Caribbean, Fast Five, etc etc? Welcome back dudes! After this Harry Potter movie, they've scheduled for these dudes and friends to be screening soon! Geez!! I’ve been waiting for this like foreverrrrrrr!-yea, with lots of "rrrrr"!-

So, the question that you should ask to me is, am I going to watch it today, on prime time? Sadly, no. My dearie is working, so like it or not we have to watch it on weekend. Did you still remember my sayings about this final harry potter movie? Well yeah, I’m going to watch it on premiere studio. You have my word. Stayed in Jakarta for more than five years, I never watched movies in premiere studio! Never ever! Imagine! Anyway, tickets’ on hands, and this is my first time so, mind my “kampungan” behaviour :p

I’m more excited to know that I’m going to watch it on premiere studio, rather than the fact that I’m gonna watch the last chapter of Harry Potter Series or the movie itself. I already read the book, I already watched it, so there’s nothing could surprise me anymore, so all I hope is the studio will be beyond my expectation. Or well, just don’t expect too much, since, we didn’t managed to get “the best seat” which is in the middle of the screen, but on left corner, thankfully, it’s on top, the very first row, which known as row “A”.

color edited :)

Every single person in this country is thirst for good/read:Hollywood/movies, no wonder the theatre(s) in couple weeks ahead will be flooded by thousands of people. It’s like you found an oasis in the middle of desert! I can imagine. Therefore, I should thanked God, that we could get the tickets, on second day, good seated, I can say with only queued for 20 mins or so.

Catch up with you guys later on, gotta go now, as a bad news for me, my vesca acted weirdly these few days. Safari browser, which is my favourite browser, is not working until now. I’ve uninstalled it! iTunes also doesn’t work properly. It can’t backup my iPhone’s data. My CPU performance is also reach 100% in fact there’s no any program running, well, I have like 6-7 programs running in background, exclude my anti-virus and other supporting programs. Usually it worked nicely, and I’ve turned them off for good, but still... And worst, my lappie fan’s sound is very noisy everytime I opened skype or iTunes or more than two tabs on my browser. OMG!! I really really don’t know what to do with this laptop. I’ve tried to uninstalled unused programs and other unimportant things, but it stays the same. I’m giving up! SIGH!!

Maybe it’s the time for Macbook Pro :p I don’t know... We’ll see...

Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. ---Vincent Van Gogh, 1889.

One Step Closer

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Can't tell how nervous I was within these few days. I nervous and worried at the same time thinking whether am I going to pass my verbal and numerical reasoning test or not. You know how I-am-so-not-into-accounting, right? But this is the very first time in my life, I feel like I can deal with it, and I'm going to find a job based on my background education, which is accounting, and the only job that I love is working in a banking industries. I’ve just received an email said that I passed the test. What a relieved! Thank you so so so much, Jesus, My Lord. I couldn’t be happier than this. I want this badly, and this means so much to me. Means a lot to me, umm no, it means everything to me. You know, by the time I visited the building for the test, I was in love with the atmosphere already and I know, I’ll be fine and I’ll be doing great things in there. And voila, thanked God I passed.

Okay, this does not a 100% guarantee that I could joined the team, the whole process is still a long way to go, but this is big. This is the first step, if you failed on your first step, you have to say goodbye for the rest, so yeah, this is big and important. At least, I’m one step closer to it and I’m thankful for that. I am so grateful for this great news and hopefully, everything that’s good will follow smoothly. You know, I almost lose all my hope, but this brings my confidence back and raises my hope again.

You don’t know how excited and grateful I am at the moment. Thank you so much for all the good wishes and prayers from all of you, my all-time beloved people in my life, especially my dear Lord, Jesus. I’m still waiting for the next great news, but all I know is, I’m not going to waiting in vain and I won’t be disappointed in the end. Finger crossed.

There is nothing so well known as that we should not expect something for nothing - but we all do and call it Hope. ---Edgar Howe

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows - part II

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Has just finished watching the last chapter of Harry Potter series. It was really a great movie. It’s pathetic to know the fact that I’ve watched it on my lappie, downloaded the pirated version with blurry picture-thanked God, it still acceptable and actually it’s pretty clear for a pirated version, I still could see the death-eaters, which means, it’s not too dark for our eyes to enjoy the show-not in the cinema as I planed year ago, that I’m going to watch it on Premiere Studio at EX. Fuck to Indonesia’s government and all of those crazy silly banning Hollywood movie policy! What a shame, me as a potter mania, watched it this way! I’m going to watch it again tho, once they screening it on the cinema, because if the rumor is true, this movie is on its way to the theater. I don’t know, we’ll see.

Talk about this movie, the final battle was bloody awesome! I found out that David Yates shouldn’t make this “short” :p three parts, if it’s possible, but I guess I couldn’t wait for 3 years for that. LOL. Anyway, I’ve read the books, so, I already knew the story line, but still I shed some tears when Severus and everyone else died. Moreover, it’s sad to know that this is the end, the final of everything. Sometimes, I still hope that next year will be another potter series, or well, could you remake them or added an extended version or whatever it is, just gimme some more!! :D I believe everyone out there wanting the same with me.

Now as I already watched it, it makes me want to re-watch it again on cinema so badly. Gosh!! I just can’t wait anymore!! Anyway, once they release the blu-ray version, I’m going to buy the complete series and we’ll see if I can find a perfect time to watch them continuously. :D

Well, all I have to do now is just patiently wait till it hits the cinema and then, another wait for Pottermore. I also can’t wait for this one. I’m 100% sure that it’s going to be awesome just as the books and the movies. So, have you submit your email(s)? If you haven’t, well, you better hurry up! :D

Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living. Above all pity those who live without love. By returning you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed and fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say goodbye for the present. --- Albus Dumbledore.

Memories...

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I'm here to keep my promises. Let me tell you this, on this post, you’re going to see bunch of pictures and of course fully report of how I spent my 2 months in beloved hometown.

Back to two months ago, a day before I went back, I wasn't that excited to going back. Seriously, like I don’t wanna leave this metropolitan city just yet. But as I’ve told you before, I have to go back for my sacrament confirmation, so yeah, like it or not, ready or not, I have to go back. You know, no matter how good and beautiful and nice other cities were, hometown is always be a place that you’d always missed and you’d definitely love to comeback, to enjoy togetherness with family and feel the warmth, enjoy your childhood memories and more...

That’s exactly what I felt. Once my plane landed and I stepped my first step to Polonia and breathed the fresh Medan’s air that night, because it rained that night and thankfully it stopped right an hour before I landed, I had this fabulous feeling inside me. Can’t tell you the exact feeling, but deep inside you, you feel like, well, this is home. It was a great feeling you know, to be back to see beloved people in your life, great best friends, I don’t know, I’m crying while I’m typing this. I miss my little hometown so badly. It only my second day here, but I feel so alone here, literally. Now that I’m already here, right here in my room, alone, I wish I’m in this condition in Medan. This feeling is just the same feeling that I used to felt 6 years ago, when the first time I went to Jakarta to study, left all things behind.

Sometimes, when I didn’t do anything while I’m still in Medan, I feel bored, for staying alone at home, doing nothing and simply can’t do anything, but it’s worse in here. At least, there, you with your family at your home, not just like in here, alone and you know no one. No company at all. I simply miss all of my 2 months routines in there. I’m currently imagining my home. Every corner, rooms with all furniture in it. Can I just bring home everything that’s good in here, in Jakarta and everything I love in here to Medan? If it’s not because of this and that, I’d love to be back, for good.

Anyway, enough for being such a cry-baby, here’s a recap of my 2 months activities in my hometown.

The very first time I hang out with my besties and some old friends was in LEKKER, located at Multatuli, Medan. All I can say, this place is superb, it’s a great place and food, of course with great companions. In the end, I just found out that this place is owned by my old classmate’s brother. How cool is that, right? No pics for this, because I've posted it before, if you really want to re-read it again, you can simply click here :)

Then couple days later, I went to DOME at SUN plaza with two besties to had a lunch and gossipin time and of course shopping time. It was a great time, I can say. We haven’t done this kind of activity like ages. So, yeah, we really enjoyed it.

I also went out with my old friend, Rosy. I mostly hang out with her, while I’m in Medan. You know, we never that close before, but these days I found out that we’re quite click to each other. We shared our thoughts about people, life and everything else. It’s always been a very nice talk with her. We went to Ya Kun Kaya Toast, Steak and Stuffs, Bakerzin and The Traders, not in a day of course. I really had great time with her.

Food at Bakerzin was delicious. Unfortunately, the fish & chips that I had at The Traders was a disappointment. Rosy's grilled salmon was fantastic and beautiful, tasted so good.

Well, I still have many pics of beautiful, delicious and tasty food pics, unfortunately, this post is way too long already and too many pictures in one post is not good, so we have to separate this post into two parts. I'll see when I have a mood to upload the rest of them, as for now, I have something else in mind to share to you :p Stay tuned, sugarpies :D

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ---Albert Schweitzer

This Fear is Killing me

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Have you ever felt such great fear of something that you don't even know what was that? Currently, I'm in a situation like that. Well, what I mean here is not fear of something like ghost or unreal things like that, but something that you don't know what it is but somehow makes your heart beating fast and you worried about it.

I don't know what the problem really is, I have no clue. All I can do is just guessing this and that. Hoping that it isn't real, or worse, it worse than what I thought. Here I am now, focusing on what am I trying to type and split everything out of my head into this paragraph and wondering really hard what on earth is going on and hoping that everything will be all right.

Silently I pray... Oh, God... You know what's going on right now. Whatever it is, I hope you give Your best to them.

Amen.

Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things. ---Samuel M. Shoemaker

I heart Photography

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Well, I've been in love with photography, cute and beautiful pics since long time ago. Can't tell when is exactly the day I started to waste my time to browsed around the internet to see these lovely pics. All I know is I heart it for quite a long time already. Unfortunately, I don't have any good equipments for taking such a beautiful scenery, gorgeous food and stuffs and everything that I could see and snap it into pics. I simply don't have any digital camera, until now. Thanked God, now I have my iPhone 4, the camera is pretty nice and that's one of the reason(s) why I upgraded my 3GS.

Now that I already had my iPhone 4, I started to took more pics than before. I did take bunch of pics using my 3GS and it was awesome except the fact that after 6 p.m, I couldn't get any nice pics anymore, but grainy and full of noise pics. I hate that tiny little grainy and noise on my pics. I love sharp, crisp, clear and some nice-blurry on the background of the object. I know if I want this, I should get a DSLR. Well, I'll get myself one, but not in the near future for sure, that's why, I need to find apps for my iPhone that will supporting me in taking good pics from my iWhite.

There are bunch of great yay and nay apps on iTunes store but sadly haven't found any good apps for noise/grainy removal or reduction, except the one that I have to pay, and I don't know, I just don't want to pay for that. Why? First, it's because, I JB my phone, so, I think skeptically, that I already JB-ed it, it means I could get everything for free and it feels good when you can have almost all expensive apps for free, so, no way you could force me to buy them. Second, it's maybe I'm thinking of my DSLR. Currently I'm starting filling up my piggy-bank. So, the more saving that I did, means one step closer to the DSLR. Well, I, myself don't know until when I could stay this way. The temptation of buying those apps, especially, new apps and they are not available yet on installous is very big. You know, at the moment, I am so proud of myself, to have such a way of thinking so that I could do (ehm) saving, or let's say, not wasting more money on these apps. :p

What a relieved, today, an hour or two before I start typing this, I found a gorgeous plugin for my Adobe Photoshop CS5, it's called DeNoise. I don't have to explain what's the function. You can tell by its name, right? And what's good about it? Start from now on, you won't see any grainy/noise on my pics. Seriously, if I'm not too lazy to edit them first and reduce or remove the noise/grainy if it possible before I post it on my blog or anywhere. Tee Hee :p
I should say that luck is my very best friend today. I've been looking for this kind of feature and apps for ages and sigh, all I have to do is spending a lot of money on them, if I really want to get them, but today, I've got this product, worth $79.99 for FREE!! Imagine!! :D The result was great and lovely. Every grainy pics that I edited with this plugin turned out great and just like you snapped them with DSLR or well, at least digital camera. Impressive, isn't it?

Anyway, I decided to get myself an external macro/wide-angle lens for my iPhone 4, or maybe I need a tripod for my iPhone. I'm not so sure yet, but, I guess, it's possible in a few weeks or next month maybe, you're gonna read a review about it here, on my blog. We'll see... :D

So, I guess I gotta go. I want to do some more experiments with my new plugin. You'll see the difference that I've talked about, in one condition, if I am be able to upload them here, as you know, old story, internet issue.

Update!! Internet being so nice, I could upload these, with quite big size, even after I resized them. For details, full view, please, simply by click the pics above-will be opened in new tab-and tell me what do you think :)  On the first pics (3rd) one, actually I love that app, unfortunately, as you can see, it took with small size around 50-200kb with dimension: 480*640 px and 720*960 px (if I set it to HD quality) and you can't really took pics with it at nighttime or in a low-light situation, because it doesn't support iPhone 4's flash-well, to be honest, even me rarely use the flash, tho-. Anyway, it's a bit blurry after I applied the plugin, but I can deal with it because it makes my pics even nicer, especially on food pics, it makes the food looks yummier :D Buh Bye Grainy and Noise :D

Till we meet again, fellas!

Ciao.

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer. ---Ansel Adams

Simply, I'm not okay...

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iTunes currently plays this song. That's exactly how I feel. Now I put it on repeat.

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you

Do you ever wanna run away?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on, turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming

No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels alright
You don't know what it's like, to be like me

To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark
To be kicked, when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around

To be on the edge of breaking down
When no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

Do you wanna be somebody else?
Are you sick of feeling so left out?
Are you desperate to find something more
Before your life is over?

Are you stuck inside a world you hate?
Are you sick of everyone around?
With the big fake smiles and stupid lies
Well deep inside you're bleeding

No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels alright
You don't know what it's like to be like me

To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark
To be kicked, when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around

To be on the edge of breaking down
When no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

No one ever lies straight to your face
And no one ever stabbed you in the back
You might think I'm happy but I'm not gonna be okay

Everybody always gave you what you wanted
You never had to work it was always there
You don't know what it's like, what it's like

To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around

To be on the edge of breaking down
When no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like

To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around

To be on the edge of breaking down
When no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like

Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life

No more to say. I'm out~

It is such a secret place, the land of tears. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Depressed and Despair...

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It's early, I know, but I can't help. I'm in a middle of a HUGE situation right now. I don't know how to put these into right and proper words without adding some/read:lots/of my emotion and anger in it. All of these situations make me stressed and it simply ruined my mood and day. I don't know how to face it anymore.

Anyway, you don't have to read this if you don't like or whatever. I just have to get these out of my head, or else, I'm going crazy real soon, well, I'm half way there...

You know, I don't wanna be in this situation either. You're not the only one. But what to say and to do? I know me very well, even you're one of the most closest people in my life. I know what am I capable on and what I don't. You just can't push me like this. You said that I don't take this thing seriously, you've got to be kidding me. That simply means, you don't know me at all, even we're so close. Don't you know I always see them with a jealousy eye? Envying their situation and all those stuffs? You just don't know me. This is hard for me too. I know why you acted this way, it's all for my own goodness, but I don't like the way you treated me, the way you pushed me that hard, though I don't know if sweet words are working for me or not.

I want to be just like them, but I guess luck isn't my best friend at the moment, and that matters a lot to me. I need more luck rather than everything else that you've mentioned before. I know it's wrong to think this way and just to rely on this Goddamn thing called luck, but I have no more idea about what to do. I can't think of other way, I almost giving up. Now I just resigned to it.

I know our situation and how bad it's gonna be, I really want to put my hands on it too, not much but at least I could help it, but how? Can't figure it out. Moreover, they weren't very supportive after I speak up what's inside my head, then what should I do? You tell me. I've been into couple of them, but it always ended up this way, I'm tired. I can't deal and struggling with something like this. Just because I don't have strong determination on this thing, you can say that I'm not thinking seriously about it. Or well, perhaps it's true, but not 100%. It's because I'm tired of all these situations. Rather on keep trying, I choose to giving up and let it that way, like whatever will be, will be. I'm depressed and in total despair...

Will you help me, God? I do really need those two, help or luck, or even better if I can have both.

Luck never gives; it only lends. ---Swedish Proverb