HANZKY

Waktu Gong Xi Fa Cai kemaren, kita sekeluarga ke PIM (jarang-jarang lhoo sekeluarga ke mall gini). Truus gue iseng nyatetin uang yang keluar hari itu. Ini dia listnya: 

You know what, it's 10:36 PM...and I just got home at 10:00 PM. I wish I didn't have to have a date with my laptop and just lay down, finish of Eat, Pray, Love movie or read one of the books I just got this week (there are six!!). Honestly, I'm getting sick of my laptop :D. I know I want to write more this year, but at the same time, I'm planning not to touch my laptop once I get home from work. How is that possible? :D

By the way, since I'm dead tired (been out and about since 8AM), I cannot think and produce elaborate thinking. But I do want to write a few homework from the parenting seminar I attended this morning.

- Many kids right now (even us, the parents), don't have a good sense of self, they don't really know who they are, their strength and weaknesses and it's all because we live in a busy world that we don't even take the time to sit down and assess ourselves, to get to know more about ourselves. And that's sad because a healthy and successful person has a strong sense of self. Of course, this is a big homework that can be achieved from the little things we do/say/treat our kids everyday. For myself, I may need to write down a paragraph about myself, because when I asked to explain three things about me, I kinda have a hard time and just said the general/obvious things. Jibran needs to know about his strength and weaknesses too.

- I will involve Jibran in planning his menu for the whole week. I'm going to start with breakfast first. I'll ask him what he wants to have from Monday - Sunday, tell him to check if we have it in the kitchen. If not, then we need to go grocery shopping together and make sure he gets what he needs. I know it would be much simpler to exclude him from the planning but he needs to learn about his needs. Kerempongan itu nggak seberapa dibandingkan dengan pembelajaran yang dia dapatkan. Bisa belajar tentang harga, brand, nutrisi and even math. It's the learning process that counts. I agree that it takes a well planned individual to succeed. It goes to other areas to as big as developing a country, the government don't have a solid plan on how to build this country so this is what we have now...:(

- Kids live in a world full of threat (contoh kecil yang kita nggak sadar...lagu nina bobo aja sudah merupakan ancaman lho). There are many parents (or grandmas/nannys) who always threaten the kids that they are going to call the police/doctor/etc if the kids don't want to do things they told them to do. And little did we know that those are going to stick on their mind that they will grow up into a coward, because their childhood were full of threats. Thank goodness, I'm not one who use threat as a weapon to discipline my kids and i'm always happy to slap anyone who do that to my kids :D. But I do let them know about consequences if they don't do certain things. I just need to make sure the way I say it doesn't make it sound like a threat. Ibu Elly Risman showed us 12 style of talking that parents always do to their kids such as 'Ordering, blaming, belittling, comparing, threatening, lying, critizing, etc'..and that makes me cringe..some kids really do have to endure verbal abuse :(. I hope to never hurt my kids feeling.

- Distinguishing between my problem and the kids problem. Mbak Elaa discussed this yesterday too. When they forgot to bring their homework to school, don't help them by asking the driver to bring the book. It's their fault and let them deal with it and learn from it. I totally agree with it and fortunately it only happened one time and it was the lunch box that he forgot and I really don't have the heart to let him go hungry :D. Oh..and there was another time..and the teacher smsed me and somehow I didn't want the teacher to have an impression that I didn't care about it so yea..I asked the driver to go back and bring the book...-__-

I think that's all for now...digangguin Jehan niihh..arghhh....

It's 11:21 PM...so I'm gonna be very random on this post. If it wasn't for #7hari challenge, I would've gone ZzzZzz 

The AFF Suzuki Cup last December was one of the highlights of 2010 for me. And I thought I didn’t like soccer? :D. Well, the world cup a few months before sprinkled a few interests in me, not just because of some good looking athletes :p but because it just felt good to see a festivity and to be supporting something, although I didn’t have the emotional connection with the team I was supporting. Everywhere we turned, everyone was always talking about it, either on TV or on the Internet or offline. I was even more excited when I happened to be in La Ramba, Barcelona when the Spanish team was playing in the semifinal and got to celebrate it with the Spaniard. I thought that was the closest I could feel to the excitement I felt towards college basketball back in the days.


Turned out, I was wrong. The AFF Suzuki Cup experience was even more intense on the emotional level because I was supporting the country’s national team and this is where it was happening!. Oki had been talking about the AFF Suzuki Cup before because he planned to take me and Jibran there. Little did we know that we would be involved with it even further because next thing we knew, The Daily Media were the one who handled AFF Suzuki Cup digital campaign and managed their Facebook and Twitter account.

So I and the rest of team, in order to understand more about hype, had to watch every game (And I did…I went to nine games…except for the final..sigh).

It was truly an amazing experience for me, both job wise as well as on the personal level. I was happy I could cheer for the country and support the national team till the very end. I was happy that Indonesia did well except for the one we played at Bukit Jalil. True the national team didn’t win the cup, but they did win and stole our hearts, united us, gained our utmost respect and succeeded in reminding everyone that there are still things to love about this country. I was also happy that the campaign we handled exceeded the target and expectation. I was also happy to get that feeling of enthusiasm about sports back and witnessed so many positivity. It was nice to see sea of reds everywhere. To be in GBK along with 80,000 other people who relentlessly sang the national anthem was quite an awesome you can’t get anywhere else. I was also happy that I was able to connect some people to their passion and gave them a new unforgettable experiences ☺.
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By the way, here are some clueless conversations between me and Vanya in GBK that I still remember. This took place on the first day where no one else was with us.

Vanya: Han, Laos yang mana Thailand yang mana yah? :D. Me: Cengar cengir (nggak ngerti juga soalnya):D
Me: Ehh Van, ternyata Malaysia udah score lho, kok kita nggak tau sih? (Gantian Vanya yang cengengesan)

Waktu Indonesia gol, kan ada petasan-petasan tuh. Kita yang terkagum-kagum karena mikir ‘wahh panitianya well prepared sekali ya’. Tapi trus kita mikir sendiri dan nanya ke orang sebelah, ‘Mas-mas, itu petasannya dari panitia apa pada penonton pawa sendiri ya?’. ‘Bawa sendiri’, kata si mas. Dan kita langsung ciut takut ada yang salah arah.

Vanya: Ya ampun han, tau nggak sih..gawangnya udah pindah ya?..Butuh 5 menit buat gue nyadar kalo gawangnya udah pindah :D.

Vanya: Han kalo wasit dikasih kartu merah gimana ya? . Me: Hah? Wasit kok dikasih kartu merah? Siapa yang ngasih? Vanya: Ehh maksud gue keepernya. Me: Ohh ganti cadangan kali (sok ngerti). Vanya: Lah kan kartu merah nggak boleh diganti? Me: Oh iya yaa? :p

See you again in 2012, AFF Suzuki Cup!

Last Saturday, I got to moderate #PeekAbook talkshow, a regular event held by Buah Hati and Mommies Daily. The topic was about Father & Kids, so unlike any other parenting seminar I've been to, half of the attendee was the dads, including Oki (and the kids who were playing at Giggle). Najelaa Shihab was the speaker (along with Trias and Sogi as the representative of Dads), so of course we went home with practical tips that could be implemented right away. But I'll leave that for report on Mommies Daily :D

Mbak Elaa talked about the roles of a father (there are four: player, teacher, protector and partner), some admitted that they looked back to how they were parented in determining their own parenting style. Some were inspired by how they were raised while some were totally the opposite. They didn't like the way their father raised them so they try their best to do what they wished their dads had done to them growing up.

..and I can't help but to look back to as far as I could, to remember every detail I can recall about my childhood. Sadly, there wasn't many childhood moment I have with my dad that's still in my memories. I don't even have pictures together with him when I was little, which makes me pondering if he had ever hold me when I was a baby. I think one of the first pictures of me and him was when I was already in high-school, or was it college years?.

Jibran just before he left for school, proudly showing the iPad replica we made last night :)



Jehan with her 'pillow face', she was waiting for me to take a shower in the bathroom :)

6:52 PM and stuck in Kemang Utara on the way home. I usually won’t bother to open my laptop in the car and just read my Twitter timeline from my iPhone..but not this time because this is where the #7hari challenge starts!. And my challenge is to update this blog everyday. I know it sounds like a walk in the park..but it’s not. If it is, I would’ve been able to update this every single day since a long time ago. The thing that makes it hard is of course..finding the time to write. It’s hard to squeeze in a 30 minutes to put my thoughts into writing. When I write, I like to allocate certain length of time so I can finish it in one sitting, because I believe I write better that way. But it seems like impossible for today, that's why I decided to open up my laptop and see if I can get two or three paragraphs done. When I get home, I have to help Jibran with his science project. Something that I just found out this morning (my bad). He needs to make a replica of an electric thing. Maybe we can make an iPad out of cardboard or something.

Anyway, so what’s a #7hari, you ask? It’s a challenge to do something different in your daily routine. I did it a few times recently. I try to cook but failed after day 4. I tried to cut off my Ginseng coffee intake completely and boy was I relieved when I passed the challenge. Again, it might seems like an easy thing to do, but I’ve been an addict of that particular cofffee for a long time. I first consumed it when I was pregnant with Jibran and that was 8 years ago!!. I used to drink it twice..even thrice a day at around the same time, morning and late afternoon. There were times when my head turned dizzy after a few minutes upon missing the intake . I was that addicted, it was crazy. I thought to myself that this addiction is not healthy at all. I felr insulted that I didn’t have control over my own body. Since I didn’t want to depend on it for the rest of my life, I tried to cut down by taking it only once a day and substituted the other one with other coffee. The first few days was hard but then it became easier. Last week, I decided that it was time to try to go about my days without it so when I ran out of it, I didn’t buy anymore. It was easy because I got Starbucks a few times and Anomali coffee for two times as substitutes :D…

For next time I’m going to try to not consume/buy anything that comes in plastic. I’ve sorted my trash at home and in the office so I thought why don’t I stretch it a little bit further?. I can also run for the whole week or walk somewhere (this is hard). I’m also going to try dressing up to work like I would going to a fashion show or important event because sometimes I feel like I dress too casually when I don't have meetings to go. Or I might call my long lost friend for the whole week.

So what’s this challenge all about? I believe any kind of challenge can teach us many things. For example we can learn about self control, about detachment. We’re also leaving our comfort zone, incorporating new activity into our life that hopefully will add excitement on our days. It also forces us to stretch ourselves, to push ourselves just a little bit harder because when we thought we’ve tried our best, we can still beat our best record.

By the way it’s 7:11 PM…and I've reached home.

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Now it’s 10:15 PM..the kids are sleeping, the husband is on the way home. I’ve changed to my pajamas but haven’t washed my face off. Taking a shower? That is asking too much. I didn’t even get a chance to have dinner. But I helped Jibran created his iPad..out of my Mango shoebox -__-

Anyway..so now everyone in the office is doing their own #7hari challenge. Vanya is going to arrive in the office at 9 (fine by me :D). Affi will exercise for 30 minutes a day while Amal is kissing goodbye to her coffee intake. Syita & Farah decides to do something with the food. Syita won’t consume anything prepared by frying while Farah won’t be eating any meat/chicken. Rizka & Lita will do something with their look. Since Lita has always been wearing black hijab, she will start wearing different color while Rizka will apply a full make up everyday. Itha has always been a heel/wedge kind of girl but she will learn to live with flats for the next 7 days.

Sounds like fun, isn’t it? We talked about it in the office and brought it up in Twitter and suddenly, many people wanted to join us. I created a thread in the forum to update on the progress.

Back to speaking about the benefits of doing this kind of challenge, I believe once you've passed, it'll boost your self esteem, knowing that you are able to do what you once thought impossible. Doing this takes courage too..especially for something extreme. To me, the most extreme thing the team is doing at the office got to be Amal challenge. May the force be with her!

I love walking..I really do. I mean if Jakarta is pedestrian friendly I would walk everywhere my short feet could take me :D. I used to walk a lot when I lived in Singapore, Perth & Carbondale (where I easily lose 20 kgs in a year due because of it). Not so much in St. Louis because it's just impossible to walk where you have to take the highway to your destination. The public transportation system is kind of suck too, unless you live along the metro line. That's why I loved it a lot whenever we visited Chicago because I could walk and walk and walk. Hey, I didn't even complain when we had to walk for hours in Venice, dragging those heavy suitcases because besides of the view, I enjoyed the walking experience I couldn't have in here.

I walked a lot when I was little too because my kindergarten, elementary and junior high school were located within walking distance. Add the fact that we didn't have car back then..so it was either walking or taking the becak ride :). I still walked a lot in high school too, because I took public transportation and it was quite a distance from the main road to my house. I also always liked the walk to a nearby supermarket, or to the famous Taman Solo Bakso establishment, or just to a friend's house. I was either on my foot or riding my bike. Again, we didn't have car at that time.

When I came back home for good and have a car....and two kids..:D, it's just more convenient and faster to take the car, even if we only have go to somewhere within the same zip code, or just to the next clusters or even if I just have to go by myself. I notice the ARTs at home rarely walked too because they always took the motorcycle and even became uninterested with bicycle. I understand that it just seems to be more efficient, but it creates another problem; the motorcycle gets broken down easily, more traffic jam, more accidents (it's more dangerous if it's a short ride because they usually don't wear helmet and pay attention to the proper traffic rules), more money spent for gas, parking and maintenance and most of all, it adds pollution to this already badly contaminated city.

So yes, obviously being spoiled with the availability of a car and the fact that it's just unthinkable to walk in Jakarta stopped me from having the slightest thought about walking. Until a few weeks ago when I read Najelaa Shihab Twitter that said she's been trying to walk anywhere she can, and I was like..whoa..really? Is it even possible to walk on this unorganized street of Jakarta? But then I quickly realized that many people are actually doing it. Whenever I get stuck inside my car, there are always people walking by on the side of the street, or trying to cross the street. It's just a matter if we're willing to do it or not when the possibility (walking distance destination, no rain, etc) is emerged. That's when I started to entertain the idea. I know there's not many places I can go if I have to depend solely on my feet, but at least knowing that I have the option to walk is already an intriguing concept for me. I then promised to myself that I would look for a chance to walk and do it in a heart beat if it seems feasible.

My mom was in the hospital for almost a week and since the hospital is just close by, I decided that it's time for me to walk! Sadly, I could only walked once because most of the time I went home at night and had to stop by somewhere else before going to the hospital in the morning. It was really refreshing to walk with my aunt and cousin in that late Tuesday afternoon. A little bit of bonding time, a chance to see what I wouldn't see if I was in the car (because my eyes are usually on the cell phone), an opportunity to clear the mind and process my thought, a moment to take pictures and basically just live in the moment. Nothing but a lovely experience.







I wish I could walk more.....but where?

note: a few photos that lead all the way to my house have been deleted. Thank you Depe for the reminder :)

Today is mom's fourth day at the hospital. I've been here since 6:30 in the morning. The weather is rather gloomy with light rain splashing the city. Mom is taking a nap before undergoing a few scan tests. So it's just me, my iphone and the fashion tv showing clips from Milan fashion week.

The window is open and i can feel the fresh morning breeze. One of the things that I'm thankful for this morning is this green trees that surround the hospital area. The hospital is located just near my house and when i left from home this morning i too noticed the serenity brought by the green trees that lined up on the street all the way to the hospital. Yellowish leaves were falling down covering the streers, it's the closest thing to autumn in Jakarta. We're so lucky to have found home in this secluded green space right behind the busy roads of Mampang.

note: that one is not our house though, it just happened to be standing a click away from the top floor of this hospital

Intinya...tau harus berbuat sesuatu tapi setelah itu actionnya nggak ada :D Emang nggak semudah ngebalik telapak tangan sih bikin financial plan, that's why there is a profession called financial planner. Jangankan bikin financial plan ya, untuk bikin kita sadar to get up and do it aja nggak gampang, gue merasakannya sendiri. Bener-bener butuh tekat dan keinginan yang luar biasa. Kalo yang belum melakukan apa-apa yaa..they just don't want it bad enough. I guess I wanted it bad enough pada akhirnya makanya bener2 belajar sendiri supaya ngerti. Kalo mau gampang sih tinggal serahin aja sama financial planner tapii..selain sayang uangnya..haha..gue juga pengen tau sendiri seluk beluknya so I was willing to invest my energy to learn every bit of it. Hidayah untuk bikin financial plan ini juga nggak dateng dengan sendirinya lho...itu terbentuk setelah gue bacain semua artikel di QM Financial, yupe each one of them, beli bukunya Aidil Akbar, dateng ke talkshownya Ligwina 3 kali, dengerin Cosmopolitan FM Financial survival dan kadang-kadang Hard Rock FM Financial Clinic..and read just about any financial article I could find including reading every post about investment in Female Daily. Trus sahabat gue juga ikutan jadi clientnya QM Financial yang bikin gue jadi ngerasa, ihh kok gue irresponsible banget sih nggak bergerak cepat. Gongnya sih setelah jalan-jalan dari Eropa kemaren walaupun sebelumnya udah mulai beli reksadana. I guess realizing bahwa baru sedikit banget yaa belahan dunia yang pernah gue datengin and then seeing how happy the kids are to be together and exploring something they've never seen before bikin gue jadi takut nggak bisa jalan-jalan lagi..huhuhu. So it took me 6 months to finish our family financial plan. Kalo mau fokus sih sebenernya sebulan juga selesai kok :D, gue aja yang ngerjainnya sambil lalu makanya lana..cuma ngerjain satu jam..trus 1 minggu kemudian lanjutin lagi, begitu seterusnya. Kalo sama financial planner juga kira-kira butuh 2-3 kali meeting sampe plannya jadi, kurang lebih sebulan kali ya? Nah karena jadi banyak yang tanya, gimana sih bikin plan, apa sih step-stepnya, ntar gue coba tulis deh di sini, daripada jelasin satu-satu bok. Tapi ini cara gue yaa..yang bisa jadi sama atau bisa jadi beda sama financial planner beneran, yang penting alirannya sama..:p. Apalagi kalo mereka pasti detil banget tuh ngitung plannya, sampe subscription fee dan redemption fee reksadananya diitung. Kalo gue kan dibuletin aja..:D Anyway, hari ini gue nyuruh supir nyokap ke Aksara buat beli bukunya Ligwina. Beli dua sekalian buat nyokap dan ade gue. Nyadarin nyokap lebih susah lagi lho, generasi di atas kita kan emang lebih konservatif, lebih 'rejeki udah ada yang ngatur'..dan apa apa 'Insya Allah' ada jalannya...susah ngerubah mindsetnya..but I'm not giving up yet :D..karena mau ikutan misi besar buku ini, to be a stronger middle class Indonesians :)

Happiness & peacefulness is...listening to Jibran and Jehan happily praying or singing any Islamic songs :). Really, those are like music to my ears and heart. I especially love it when they sing the asmaul husna. Too bad they don't sing it as much as they did a year ago so I have yet to have the video, only the audio in Blackberry.

Jehan juga udah hafal surat al-fatihah, baca doa mau makan, mau tidur sama doa untuk orang tua (hiks..mewek dengernya). Kalo Jibran lebih canggih lagi, udah hafal surat-surat pendek yang bahkan gue sendiri nggak hafal lhoo.. emang masih terbatas nih hafalan surat pendek gue. Trus surprisingly Jibran juga udah hafal semua bacaan sholat lengkap. I'm amazed! Padahal gue nggak pernah ngajarin, yah kalo mau tidur atau mau makan ya berdoa sama-sama, tapi nggak pernah menyuruh mereka untuk menghafal. Kalo sisanya sih pada belajar di sekolah dan kalo lagu-lagu ya dari dengerin di rumah atau di mobil. Gue seneng karena mereka keliatannya happy happy dan sukarela aja baca dan nyanyiinnya..:)

Well, at least in my pasta cooking history..:D. But seriously though, it tastes like heaven!!. Creamy, with the right amount of cheese and the perfect texture (chewiness?) of the fusili.






Too bad the picture is so crappy. I always cook at night and didn't have the camera handy so I just snapped it with my iPhone.

Ingredients: Cooking cream, cheddar cheese, garlic, olive oil, butter, parmesan cheese, salt & pepper!

Minced garlic (dicacah? ditumbuk?), saute with olive oil/butter, pour the cooking cream and cheddar cheese for 20 minutes until the texture changes to creamy. Add the parmesan cheese, stir a little bit and pour it into the pasta. Oh..and I chopped off some broccoli too. Yummy!