Hello 2013

Although 2012 has been been a rough year for my dear blog, I did managed to do somethings I'm gonna remembered for the rest of my life. In random order, those things are:

1. Won a festival ticket to Katy Perry's California Dream Tour and seeing her in the front of the line
2. Went to Cambodia all by myself and got lost while cycling to the Angkor Wat temples (my first solo travel abroad)
3. Made an insane youtube video (my first), a very bad E.T. version of Katy Perry, though I'm happy I'd made my friends laugh until they cried
4. Watch Jason Mraz live with my dear friends
5. Spent a quality time with my Mum at our holiday at Phuket and Singapore
6. Had a wonderful time at Vietnam with my hubby, I love the food so muuuuuch and the coffee (YUM!!)
7. Performed a surprised wacky gangnam style dance which me and my crazy duo friend made up at an office gathering
8. Made a memorable pictures of my Teddy Bear with each 86 faces at my 'ex'office (from my boss to the office janitor, everyone is in)
9. Found my way home... which mean I'm moving back to my birth town. This is me moving for the 11th time in my life

So those are the summary of my 2012. I had a new start this 2013, living with my husband (we live in different cities since before we got married) and having a new office, so all I wanna work out this year is: courage to go through all of the things ahead of me, moving forward as my strength to let go of the past and focus on now, and listening to my heart as my guidance to make my next move towards my dream.

How's your 2012? And what plans did you made for 2013? Share it with me!
Have a happy happy new year everyone!

Changes...

December has come... the last month of 2012... honestly, I'm nervous. Lot's of things are about to change in 2013. Here's a little reading about that topic:

When winter arrives, the trees must sigh in sadness as they see their leaves falling.

They say: ‘We will never be like we were before.’
Of course.

Or still, what is the meaning of renewing oneself? The next leaves will have their own nature, they pertain to a new summer that approaches and which will never be like the one that passed.
Living means changing – and the seasons repeat these lessons to us every year.

Changing means going through a period of depression: we still don’t know the new and we have to forget everything we used to know.

But if we are a little patient, spring ends up arriving and we forget the winter of our hopelessness.

Change and renewal are the laws of life.
It is best to get used to them and not suffer about things that only exist to bring us joy.

taken from paulocoelhoblog

The remake of Vietnamese spring rolls

Look what me and my mum made

A couples of months ago, I went to Vietnam and felt in love with it's foods! Everywhere I go there, the food is so delicious. The street food, the fast food, and of course the restaurant food. I specially love the food I ate at Ben Thanh Market, Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). I think they have the best food ever! So last week, me and my mum want to remake the famous Vietnamese spring rolls.

Our version of Vietnamese spring rolls

 Well, I didn't get to take a picture of the process because I was to busy to make them. The outer layer was the tricky part. I bought it from the Ben Thanh market. I was dry and we have to dip it in a warm water and it was sticky, so we have to move fast in putting in the raw veggies and the shrimp. I got the recipe from the Internet. I just combine some of the and added to my (poor) memory of how it actually taste! HAHAHA...

Proud mother - daughter

Well, here are the spring rolls! It didn't look really good as the "original" version, but it was a nice try for a first starter HAHAHA... At least I enjoyed our mother-daughter weekend thing =)

Errrrrr.... this is what the spring rolls suppose to look like!

Friends: the side effect

Watching Friends in a not-so-orderly sequences makes me wanna do the TV Show in the right order. So it goes to my 30B30 list. Recently, I've just had the time to start watching it again, since the last time was unsuccessful. I've just finished the whole season one when I started to realize the side effects of watching Friends. Since 2008, I have been living on my own, don't get me wrong, I loved it. But after being put to work in a remote place which is far from any of my friends at 2009, I'm completely ON MY OWN. So watching those six best friends, always seeing each other, taking care of each other or even just joking around, gives me that very bad side effects: I missed my friends! ='(  I really miss having a small gank like that, I used to have one at college, but now, I don't even have a friend to go with after work. It is so depressing. I was okay being alone at all times, but being alone + watching Friends = not okay!

Look how cuddlely they are... I want a gank like this!

So, I still have 9 seasons to go. I still wanna finish the legendary TV show in a sequences. Only God knows how long I could take the side effects. Does anybody have (and still) have a gank like this and still manage the work life these days? Please let me know how?

Am I killing my dream?

Things has happened to me during this few weeks (or months?)... What I discovered is that I'm starting to kill my dreams whether I knew it or not. I kinda notice it today when a good friend of mine, ask me a simple question, "when will my next travel trip be?" and I answered with so much excuses when actually I don't have any trip ahead :'( I don't know what had happened with my head, but I know it is not a good thing. I tried to seek Paulo Coelho's 1 min reading about this:

The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being.
We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice.

And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons

Words from Petrus to Paulo during The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

The question of moving on

Just a while ago, I got a chance to catch up with a friend I haven't talked to for about a year. After all of that catching up, about our lifes, our friends and all that stuff, comes that bigger question, "Have I move on?". After all the stories about someones promotion, having babies, moving to a new place, going somewhere, have the new business, I kinda felt the urge to ask myself, where am I now? How much I've change since a year ago and sadly, not much had happened. I'm still stuck in that job that I don't like since 3 years ago, I'm still living in this darn town, I haven't had any babies (which is okay for me hahaha), and I'm just still complaining about the same thing a year ago. That really hits me. I haven't moved on from the place I was a year ago. I guess it's a bit of a wake up call. I don't wanna be trapped in the position that I don't like but afraid to do something about it. This year has only two months, I'm trying really hard to figured out what to do to get out of this situation. I just need that courage to move on...

What about you? Are you complaining the same thing that you complained a year ago? Please tell me what to do...

posted from Bloggeroid

Print and stick

After reading some thoughts in Facebook, I decided I like this one, about keeping our life simple. I like, so I print it, then I sitck it! That simple! :)

posted from Bloggeroid