rose apple + sambel jempol

as foreigner its common for us if we miss our own food.

many indo foods i've been missing:
bubur ayam karet => chicken porridge under the karet bridge
mpek-mpek => sorry ... but its too hard to describe it in english!
bakso bakwan malang => beef balls soup, originally came from malang - east java
rujak => fresh fruit salad with hot - belacan sauce
whew .. many many many more ..

i was really happy as i can found the "sambel jempol" (chili sauce with Thumb brand) in mustafa centre. hmmm... yummy chilli sauce ..
guess what, sambel jempol and rose apple are really match :) their combination reminds me to many things about indo :)

you can call it rose apple, or water apple or anything .. but still its called as "jambu aer" in my homeland :)

smile :):):)

psalm 17:8 says
keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings

pasir ris

one of my colleague live in pasir ris.

it took about an hour from pasir ris to ang mo kio by bus. i went there since i want to visit my colleague and see the place she stay.

the place is interesting. a lot of trees but also has a lot of open area. by the way, pasir ris is the end destination of green line mrt serving from paris ris to jurong. the place is near east coast, very big park near the beach, a big lake for fishing, kind of waterpark if im not mistaken. mrt station, bus interchange, shopping centre and library all is in one location.

genesis 41:49 says :
joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure

rules..rules..rules..

live with nice owners is not without restrictions.

first day, i moved. they re-explain what's their rules. i thought they told me all they wanted. no cook, no friend staying without notice to grandma, no friends come and spend time in living room, no friend come and make noise, if parents come then i need to pay more for the bill (water, electricity), use the washing machine only twice a week, make sure the door and gate were locked, make sure all are clean (no problem at all for me :p ), pay the rent at last 7th day of the month.

second day, here come the other rules.

my friend came early in the morning, about 6.20am. he asked me to lend him money since he was on his way to work (its his first day of work) and he left his wallet + room key in the room, locked.

20 minutes after he left, i got a call from my room agent, asked me not to let my friend come early in the morning to the house because it will scary the grandma. i can meet friends in meeting points (like mall or other places, but not in the house). also she mentioned about the thingy i put in my door, the owner dont want me to put a cross in the door. she thought it was a cross (since im christian and they are buddhist). then i said to her that my friend would not come again, and explained that it was not a cross since it is a wooden square thing with my name put on it.
after i hung on the phone, here came a message from the owner, asked me the same things as the agent asked me.

i came out of my room and met the lady tenant next door. she tried to tell me the same 2 things. i explained her the same things and she translate it to the grandma.
whew.... seems that the whole world knows that i did mistakes that morning.

the next day, as i arrived in my office, i checked out my mobile and found an sms from the owner saying : "i just want to check out, you sleep with the light on is it?". then i replied : "yes, i sleep with my light turned on". then here came the other agreement that if the electricity bill raise, i need to pay the rest. hehehe ..

hmmm ... after this.. what else?

and now about doing laundry. its very important for me to separate white clothes from dark ones and color ones. so before this i always 2-3 times using the washing machine. if theres bed sheets or towel to wash .. then it will be 4 times.

then i put my dark stuffs first. everything was smooth. then i put my color ones in the machine for the second round. hmmm... "you can put all together in one time wash (because water and electricity are expensive)" said grandma. wow wow wow... then it means that my whitey will be grey. and my color ones becomes dull.

then the lady tenant talked to me on behalf of grandma: "i always do laundry at night, using the "speedy" program so it will be 10 minutes faster then normal. hang off the water pipe, let the water flow to the bathroom before you start the machine or the water can not come out. put back the machine cover and dont forget to switch off the power after you finish. dont forget to hang up the water pipe when its done. do not do manual wash since the excess water will wet the floor. where to hung the clothes? you can put them in terrace next to the front door. but do not put underwear outside." (hahahaha of course i will not do it).

what an hdb life :)

lamentations 3:23 says:
they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

why do i live with owners?

i live with owner now.

many people say that live with owner is horrible... and here i am now :D maybe you ask "then why do you live with owner?" hahaha. its a nice question. i say yes to this place because i can see how hard to find a perfect place to live here. if you have 10 things to fulfill, then its almost impossible to make all things filled up. if you got 6 to 8 satisfied then you can called it as luck :p

for example, a perfect place is : near mrt/bus stop, direct bus to office, less then 10 minutes to office, near food court/shops or at least 7eleven (a mini supermarket), near office, cheap price, clean place, clean toilet, clean wall, big windows, comfortable bed, spacious place, quiet, no owner, nice owner, friendly owner, no kids under 6 years, owner with certain race, new hdb (last time i saw an hdb with 29 old of age!), etc.. etc.. etc.. you can add many other things to your list. but believe me .. its hard to fill out all those things in a place.

so my current place, i can give 7 point for it. the owner are kind, friendly (their way), fair, cooperate and always try to help (their way). i said "their way" since sometimes we can have our own way in doing something. at least .. i appreciate their effort and aims to make me comfortable in their place.

isaiah 1:3 says:
the ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand."

downgrading .. but save more ..

last week end i moved to master room in an hdb.

before this i stay in a common room in a landed property without owner. but since i share bathroom with other tenants, more and more i could not tolerate the messy they made.

when a chance came for me to change places then i tried to find a master room so i would not deal with other people. then i found a place 3 bus stop away from the previous place. its a master room in a main street, near hawkers or food court (including the sheng siong supermarket), and near a big public park, Bishan Park. the rental price also cheaper. i can save $150/month.

the place is clean, well maintaned and not too old. the other place i saw, they only have lift access to some floor. the environment itself is nice and neat.

in the new place the owner -a singaporean mid lady called as Helen- lives several blocks away, but her mother and her son are staying with us. so for daily life i will deal with the grandma and a grandson, but about things to do with the rental, i deal with Helen.

the grandma seems nice and friendly but she does not speak english. she speaks malay but for me its kind of hard to understand. her grandson speak english. also the other tenants (a malay couple) speak english so i can ask them to communicate with the grandma.


terms :
if you stay in a common room then you need to share bathroom with other people.
a master room means a larger room with a bathroom attached to the room, so you can have your own private bathroom.
landed property means a house, grounded house, where hdb means a standard flat or apartement.
owner i mentioned here means the owner of the property/house/apartment.


isaiah 24:15 says:
therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.

body massage

this monday i went for body massage.

i was tooooo tired. exhausted. i can feel my body heaths. also headache and "masuk angin". i tried to do back treatment (as far as my arm can reach my back) with coin and balsam or what they called as gua sha. i took some medicine but they did not ease my pain.

the massage lady is an aunty of an acquintance i met few days ago. she did massage with her hands, elbow, also with some tools i dont know. after the massage i felt much much better. i just realize that both of my shoulder were lighter and no more swell. my body heath become normal and the headache almost gone.

the one hour treatment was very successfull. and it took away $40 from my wallet :O when i was in jakarta i only need to pay 30.000 rupiah for about $5 for 1,5 hours treatment. hmmm... very expensive country indeed ..

genesis 12:1 says :
the LORD had said to Abram, leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

bishan park

near my place there's bishan park.

even i live in ang mo kio, only 200 meters walk away from my place i can find the bishan park. it is a big park with several "lake" where people can do fishing or just have a seat around them enjoying their time.

it is a very shadowy park in that afternoon. many people came with their bike or jog along the path. many big old trees (i said they are old since they are big .. so many years taken to be that big .. so they are old ..heheheh). there's a playground also for kids and big court for young guys playing soccer. many benches were occupied with people and their books.

eecclesiastes 2:5 says:
I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them

current colleagues

my current colleagues in room #03-03 came from varies countries. 8 of us are singaporeans, 7 of us are indians, 1 of us is srilankan, 4 of us are malaysians, 2 of us came from mainland - china and 2 of us are indonesiaaaaaaaans!!!
hehehe no bule (western with blonde hair) yet :D

they are very nice people with their own characters, especially me .. im a nice person .. with my own character :) wakakakakakakakakaaaa...

james 4:13-14 says :
now listen, you who say, "today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. what is your life? you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes...

thanks for being there..

i already spent about 2 months of my life here. and today is the first time i feel miss jakarta my city. my home. my doggies. my cute tiny room. my mom. my family. and my beloved friends ..

i sent some message to some friends and ex bosses. and i will write them down here since i really i appreciate their replies. sometimes a piece of message can warm your heart and feeling. a piece of message and cheer you up and make things brighter.

HRL: kayaknya gak ada niat bkn lupa kali. Kpn mo balik Jkt? Jgn lupa singanya dibawa
AND: Gimana keadaan l disana? Mksdny temen yg baik hati n tdk sombong? Kl kangen rmh, ya pulang. Kl kangen temen, ya telpon donk =]
DNL: He he boleh kok lepasin kangen, apalagi kalau kasih aku tiket :) kapan maen kemari?
EDW : Kangen ama a* kan?
EKH : Begitulah nasib jadi TKI .. Thn lalu aku bener2 jenuh bgt, bosan, gak tau mo ngapain
EV : He he ci bet, aku juga kangen ama ci bet. Ci bet sehat kan?
LSY : Hi apa kabar dirimu? kenapa koq tiba2 kengen :) Aq koq ga bisa lg buka blogmu?
EKR : pulang and ajak makan2 kite he..he..

thanks for being there when i need you ..

genesis 46:3 says:
"I am God, the God of your father," he said. "do not be afraid to go down to egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.

character

people are like tea bags,
you have to put them into hot water
before you can know how strong they are ..

just want to share you what i bought today.

sometimes the water were so hot
and sometimes the tea becomes too strong

romans 5:3b-4 says :
because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope..

the magic of "copy and paste"

who never use the "cut and paste" activity? its kind of super simple task commonly used in our daily work with computer. so simple that we dont think it as magic.

every monday i need to do manual backup from a server to another, and i do it remotely. it means that i log in to RR server through my own computer instead of go to the server room (which is in building 5006 -fyi: im in building 5000). so i log in to RR server remotely, copy some files and put them in IT server as backup directory.

but during the process (take about 3-4 hours), i cannot do anything "big". i still can open office documents, but not another big application.
i also cannot shut down my computer during the process because the IT server is mapped as one directory in my computer.
i also cannot do it before 10.30am since the data update just finished about 10.30am.
i also cannot stay in office until late ..waiting for the backup end, since i dont want to be the last one who leave the office.
i also cannot do it half today and half tomorrow, since every 10am, the data will be update, so tomorrow data would not be the same as todays data.
also if copy process failed due to full disk or disconnection, then i need to start copy from the beginning.. it means .. another 3-4 hours.
whew..

i was upset since the first time i did the backup. i cannot even do "cut and paste" with office when i proceed the backup.

and today i really feel bad. i cannot even copy "RR User Summary Report" in my excel and paste it in another cell because the clipboard were occupied by the backup process. so what i did was type it manually. my report today was generated mannualy by me! fingers type it instead of just copy the data from other excell sheet. im so sick of that backup.

now i just realise that a "copy and paste" is a brilliant idea. from copying a word .. until copy a whole documents .. you can do it by a touch of "copy and paste".

blessed is the people who create the idea :) and poor me since i need to start the backup tonight from home (which is take longer time, about 4-6 hours).. because the backup process was failed :(

exodus 8:19 says:
the magicians said to Pharaoh, "this is the finger of God." but Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the LORD had said.