Have faith in life

Two months had passed unnoticed since I wrote my last post. I have completed my second semester at uni, and several months of work. I have been having these disturbing thoughts about the future that I am on the edge of frustration. Out of the blue I remember our family friend, “W” of Germany. Suddenly I missed this man so badly; I missed the moment when the three of us – myself, my husband, and him – talked in a bar in Yangon, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul. It was 2009, and since then I had experienced a drastic change of life. I just wanted to hear someone said not to worry about things but have faith in life, in the good things that are coming my way …

One of our friends is sort of “evicted” this evening from the house they are renting now because it was sold to somebody else. I felt so sad for him and his family, I am wondering what will happen to their three kids. Within a month there will be long Christmas break until end of January 2012, and again I felt sad to see the kids had to move house and live somewhere else. Or perhaps they will have to move their schools too, getting new friends, new environment …

Anyway, I guess it’s a reminder to say my gratitude for what I have and what I am now, instead of thinking about things I have no control of such as the future.

Tada …

Alrighty, the interview at Apple went okay but I didn’t go through the second round … because I think I’m highly overqualified for the role. I’m happy with how it went because I believe that (again) I had talked to the wrong people. Indeed. I got goosebumps whenever the naughty thought of working with these people passed through my brain. Maybe because I am more confident with myself now that I can spot opportunities and be selective in a positive sense. Indeed. What makes life worth living if it’s not because of our ability to see various options, and of the confidence that we can choose the best of all options that befits our life purpose and those who matter to us?

It’s Saturday night now so party on!

369 days later

Yeah, after a year and four days since my first arrival to stay permanently in Australia, I was offered a paid job! How sweet that is. It’s a short-term, part-time work in a state government agency, and as my manager said, “it’s a great opportunity to get your foot in the door!”

I started in this office as an unpaid intern, and probably because of my skill set, some achievement at work, and of course the fact that I could match the workplace culture (a very important communication ability for landing a job and further for career progression!) then they ask me to get involved in more projects. Some local people really want to work in the public sector for its benefits … and it’s certainly nothing comparable to the public sector in my country of origin, Indonesia.

Looking back in retrospection, I realise that sometimes we have to make a big turn to get to our main destination, and we grudge and complain that life isn’t fair — only to find out later that the big turn had saved our time, energy or even our lives. Remember this career counsellor that made me regret my meeting with her? She actually referred me to one of my lecturer to talk about my issue. I mustered my confidence just to have the courage to talk to the lecturer, an Australian, about this and within seconds she offered me this unpaid internship at the said government agency. I remember I told her I had been invited for interviews several times and got rejected; and she said lightly with confidence, “You might be talking to the wrong person”. That’s an awesome cool idea! She, and the government agency, turned out to be very supportive in assisting me to start a career here … so here I am, getting my first (paid) job at their office!

Sometimes rain blur our views and slow us down on our road trip. Fear not: wipe the water, drive slowly and cautiously to anticipate any traffic hazard in front, and we'll be okay.

Aside from this, I am also going for an interview for the Public Relations Intern position at Apple Australia office. Only God knows how much I love Apple — they produce artworks, not just  functional, modernised typing machines or radio player. I bought my 15-inch Macbook that I’m using now in Australia, for your record. The position is a paid, full-time internship that run for six months. Anyway, whatever the outcome of the interview, my hubby said public sector work is still better than the corporate world, in terms of the benefits offered. Anyway …

Also, 369 days later I’ve achieved a lot in terms of personal development. My first semester in the university went very well that I was recently invited to join an international Honour society for high-achieving student! Not bad, really, considering that my first language is not English! Also, I didn’t have a lot of expectation when I enrolled to the course: I just wanted a piece of paper that tells of my academic credential from Australia. But I know I work smart this time — plus some “hardwork” (reading, typing … ). Last week I found out I got a”Distinction” for another assignment for a subject that I thought I could not make it, because it’s really practical and people tend to use case studies from Australia which I might not be familiar. Anyway …

Wish me luck for the interview at Apple tomorrow!

Life is too short …

Messages from a dear friend:

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it do. Nobody said life would be easy; they just promised it would be worth it.

Lessons from falling down

DAARNN! I tripped over a curb and grazed my knee just in front of the entrance to the BMW dealer this afternoon. The fall successfully torn my pantyhose and scratched my lovely leather boots. A friend at the car dealership immediately asked me to sit down, took a first-aid kit box and called people to tend for my injury. Soon a few people, including the car dealer’s wife, came to help putting the patch on my left knee. This graceful lady then went to a pharmacy to buy a powder medication and some dressing pads for me and told me how to use the medication on my wound. Before I left she gave me a box of chocolate, with the hope that this would make me feel better! Such a nice public relations effort, but frankly speaking I’ve never had such experience in any car dealers, or elsewhere outside a health facility!

Anyway, this small but pleasant incident made me think on my own reaction to the generous help from other people. Again, it took me back to my childhood experience. Whenever I had a bad situation, such as falling down in public places like today or failing my exam, I would feel so deeply ashamed, and developed the belief that I was incapable. I remember I would respond like this since I was a teenager. I think it’s because my parents taught their children to look and act perfect in front of everyone, and never let anyone see us as a weak person. On the other hand, my parents also used to make me embarrassed or ridicule their children in front of our relatives and family friends. Turns out it was not only my parents, but a lot of my relatives have this habit! Perhaps it’s something related to culture — a way to encourage children to behave well. They didn’t know that it had an adverse effect on me: it made me feel ashamed and inadequate. Sometimes I even felt ashamed to acknowledge my success in public! On the other hand, getting the necessary help from other people would only show that I am weak and incompetent in solving my own problems. I grow up as an independent woman, but I felt I was inhumane (because I defied my humanity and somehow rejected the fact that I have weaknesses apart from my strengths), and was not good at teamworking and delegating tasks. My life as a grown-up was a miserable and lonely one, due to low self-esteem and poor communication skills. Meanwhile, my parents’ lives are not a little bit more successful than me — and I certainly know why.

Today, I felt ashamed after I fell down but I had nowhere to run and hide and was so in pain so I had to let other people come and help me. I felt an outpour of sympathy and this made me realise that I’m not alone in this world, and that falling down to the ground and hurt myself is not an embarrassing event. If anyone quietly sneered at my misfortune and thought that I was stupid and absentminded, then it’s his/her problem, not mine. On the other hand, by allowing other people to help me in certain situations, I also help them to become more humane.

Here’s a beautiful poem on how children learn to live their lives, then and now.

Children Learn What They Live

by Dorothy Law Nolte (1924 – 2005)

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

Glory

Live life on the edge of glory, halfway between heaven and hell, said Lady Gaga.

I love her voice, her style, her talent, her passion.

Lady Gaga -The Edge of Glory

I See You

On Monday I went to see a career counsellor in my campus to discuss about something. I went home feeling unsettled, frustrated, disappointed, and pessimistic about life. Fortunately I have enough positive energy that enables me to stay objective and reflect on what’s going on. I thought hard for days until an idea sprang up to my old brain after listening to my Ipod playing Leona Lewis’ song I See You, which is the Avatar‘s soundtrack. Suddenly I realise what the problem was, and figure out ways to avoid it.

I always have this sort of uneasy feeling after meeting the “wrong” people — people who are not on the “same frequency” in thoughts and spirits. For example, the career counsellor did not try to understand my problem from my point of view; get an intimate knowledge about myself, my dream, my passion in life; and explore what I want to do at this point in my life, which were something I expected from someone who called himself/herself a counsellor. I left her office feeling dejected in the knowing that I did not know why I had this problem and how I should solve it. Her suggestions were outdated: instead of digging into my passion and getting to work on it with me, she suggested a few things that reminded me of my counsellor in my undergrad years. The type of people who have been in the college for a long time that they forget there’s a world exists outside the Ivory Tower. A real world. So the conversation went on like a doctor trying to analyse my symptoms and prescribe something. Anyway it’s not all that bad though. She offered me something that might help me with my future career. But I already decided to stay away from this type of people, all the time. Go away. Run.

I See You song is a gentle reminder that not all people are the same. Me, for example, can help myself in scrutinising my life, and find people who are empathetic and inspiring at the same time. I have met a different variety of people from different “breeds”, who can be with me or others, and tune in fast to other people’s dilemma or aspirations that are otherwise difficult to let out. “I see you” is the Na’vi people greeting in Avatar movie that means, “I understand you”.

Check out this Learn Navi website for the language!

The Passion

I have an inspiring Facebook chat with a girlfriend from Malaysia, whom I knew around 2006 and somehow lost contact since 2007. Thanks to Facebook, we were reconnected a few months ago and I found out today that she was back in her hometown Kuala Lumpur after a six-month stint in Afghanistan. She was the person who told me once that I had a well developed sixth sense, as she is also similarly perceptive. There were lots of synchronicity in our conversation: she was having her hair done during the chat while I had my haircut on Thursday (my first haircut in a decent salon in Australia. Underline the word “decent”); she mentioned her wish to visit Melbourne while I was typing some words on an organisation in Melbourne; I was telling her why I chose to stay in Australia instead of Nairobi, Kenya, to be close to my husband and later on she said she was expecting another overseas assignment, one of which was in Nairobi! We also share one thing in common: that we are tired of travelling around the world, and need to settle down somewhere and take stock of our personal lives!

Anyway, it was a nice and refreshing conversation. She said she wanted to quit from the institution she was working now and move on to do her passions, including: teaching, making documentary films and …. opening a manga cafe! (she said she’s crazy about manga). I admired her and told her that it’s rare to find someone who wanted to pursue his/her dreams for a living, as I am surrounded by people who work hard to make money and somehow forget to nourish their passions. One of her future plan was “to teach people not to forget you need passion in order to earn big money.”

She also has a strong personality. Like another woman friend in my life, she also does not take shit from everyone, including her co-workers or supervisors. I was telling her throughout my journey around the world the tough battle was the fight against racial prejudice and stereotype. I told her I had this what people called the “slave mentality” from growing up in Indonesia and I had worked hard to leave the past behind, including any nonconstructive and outdated behaviours and attitudes. She said that Malaysians were taught since their young age to be able to stand up for their rights, and to see that human beings are equal despite their gender, skin colours, or nationalities. She said putting down her cocky co-workers, referring to the white people, was the highlight of her career *chuckle*. She’s right about having the strength of personality and the right attitude to survive in any multicultural settings, I think, since I also saw this sort of personality and character in my significant other, and many Malaysian friends of Chinese and Indian descents. All of them, men and women, have one thing in common: the never-give-up spirit, the belief that all men and women are created equal, and I believe they are not born with it, but they cultivate them with the correct worldview.

Infectious

Never mind the superficial lyric. This music video reminds me of everything positive that is infectious: Laughter, happiness, cheerfulness, optimism … you name it. Let the tune get ya!

David Guetta feat Nicki Minaj, Flo Rida - Where Them Girls At

Don’t stop trying

Got this nice story from a friend. Happy reading.

Once upon a time, there was a man who was deeply in love with his girlfriend. The lovestruck man folded 1,000 pieces of paper cranes as a gift to his girl. At that time he was just a small fry in his company which made his future uncertain. But they were very happy together despite his situation. Until one day, the woman told him she planned to go to Paris and would never come back. She also told him that there was no future for both of them as a couple. So they parted ways, leaving the man heartbroken.

After a while, he regained his confidence and started to work hard day and night, slogging his body and mind to make something out of himself.

You never fail until you stop trying. Finally with all the hard work and support from friends, the man managed to set up his own company.

He was driving in a heavy downpour one day when he spotted an elderly couple sharing an umbrella on the roadside. They were walking slowly, completely soaked in the rain, but nevertheless the man could still recognise them as his former girlfriend’s parents. He drove slowly besides the couple while wishing that they would caught him driving a luxury sedan. He wanted them to know that he was now a successful man who owned his own company, a car, a condo, etc.

But the couple continued to walk towards a cemetery, so he got out of his car and followed them. At the peaceful graveyard, he met his former girlfriend — while looking at a photograph of her smiling sweetly as ever at him from a tombstone. His paper cranes lined up in a meditative mood next to the tombstone.

Her parents saw him. He asked them what had happened. Apparently she never left for France at all. She was ill with cancer. She believed that he would be successful one day, and did not want be his burden and block his way to success. Therefore she decided to leave him.

Just because one doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean s/he doesn’t love you with all s/he has. She asked her parents to put his paper cranes besides her resting place, so that when fate brought him to her again, he could take some of the handicrafts back with him. The man wept in sorrow.

Once you have loved, you will always love. For what’s in your mind may escape but what’s in your heart will remain forever.

The worst way to miss someone so dear is to be near him/ her knowing you can’t have, see or live with him/ her ever again. Let’s take some time to realise that there is one person who mean so much to you, and that we will not take him/ her for granted.

Simply happy

I am happy with what I have, and do not envy what I don’t have.

Home affairs

Don’t tell your mother: banana, melon, cucumber, and Eiffel Tower for the sexually challenged.

Sneaky Sound System – We Love

Google+ !!!

Out of the blue I received an invitation to try Google+ from a friend in the US! Whoa …

Friday 8 July was pretty significant to my life … I had a few pleasant surprises coming my way: my request to change a subject in my graduate study was approved (I had to make a request because the enrollment to this subject was closed to my dismay, and I was already having this negative thought that I might not be able to finish my study on schedule), I’ve got an email response from my monk friend in Thailand (what a surprise! he discovered me on LinkedIn! I must be very special that he found me out of hundreds of his international students, ha-ha) and a few things that I had accomplished on Friday — including listening to Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night music video (damn… is it a new ritual?). The most interesting thing is not the Google+ but the chain of events: All seems to happen within a short time distance to each other that look like … coincidences? where are they leading me to? hello?

New Frontier

To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.
- Alan Cohen

Culture choke

My neighbor kid teaches me self-assertiveness! The six-year-old girl teaches me to know what we want and get it. And of course, be thankful to the givers.

She came a few weeks ago to my house to get her toy which landed on my backyard, and before leaving I gave her a small pack of mini chocolate cookies. She was shy and looked a bit scared the first time she told me what happened. I thought the cookie was to reward her courage to come to me, instead of sending her mom to do it on her behalf. When she was about to leave her brother came by and she immediately asked me whether her brother could have another pack of cookies! I was flabbergasted and giggling but I gave cookies to both of them. I love them and their other sister and baby brother, and their kindhearted parents.

Then I told my husband how different these kids are from how I was brought up. In my upbringing, I would be told not to ask to others, particularly those who are older than me and not really close to me or my family, for anything, and was taught to share food and other things with brothers and sisters. Like most Asian kids growing up in Asian countries, I was not supposed to do what my lovely young neighbour did to me, because it is considered inappropriate. I can’t really figure out the inappropriateness of being self-assertive, but it may be related to a social value in Asia where we are taught to pay respect to those who are older than us to satisfy social, economic, and cultural purposes. For example my parents taught me not to ask for a favour from my uncles or aunties directly, even when we need it so badly, simply because it’s not polite and will cause me and my family to lose face. The most “elegant” way to do it is by telling the elders (eg parents) what we want — using certain kind of “formal” language if the kid is smart enough at his/her age to care for this — and let the elders talk to the targets of the messages (aka the mediator role). Such a windy, “bureaucratic” way of getting what we want, isn’t it? Or is it just a lesson for kid to be courteous to the elders? Of course the kid could just pass this cultural norm by and talk to the person in private (when parents or caretakers were not around, supposedly), but again, the kid was bringing his/her family the risk of losing their faces in public, especially among the extended family.

Unfortunately, many parents do not teach kids how to best express what the kids want, including the art of conversation. Rhetoric is not taught in any school curriculum in Indonesia, except perhaps in the school of philosophy on a tertiary educational level. As I am studying communication here in Australia, I begin to understand that rhetoric is not merely a subject in the philosophy department — it’s an art of public speaking that is as important in asking someone into buying us a cup of coffee as in the presidential speech. Rhetoric is widely used in the court room, in courting a potential spouse, in advertising as well as in the government-sponsored campaigns and war propaganda all over the world. Back to my past situation, the success in mediation, or the chance that people will listen to you, was not solely based on your rhetoric skills but rather on your seniority, position in the society, or other social entitlements.

I was brought up in this kind of culture, and as I am now living in an open, individualistic, and less hierarchical society that is on the opposite of the extreme, I find myself in trouble because the concept of self-assertiveness eludes me. But I know my blessing: that I always find the path to self-improvement. It’s very hard to change the habit — and unfortunately some ignorant people may have developed negative views to it. Again, I am thankful to the people here who come to my life to teach a good lesson or two, including my neighbor kid. She is so far my best teacher in self-assertiveness. Two days later, she and her brother sent me a letter thanking me for the cookies, with lots of butterflies and heart stickers stuck to the paper! And this afternoon, both siblings came knocking on my door, inviting me to her party in August!