Season Greetings

December is one of my favorite months, regardless my final sessions (which always come on December). Whatever. Anyways, I'm so excited *hell yeah* since Christmas is coming! Even though I don't celebrate Christmas particularly, which happens to be the celebration of Jesus' birth, I love to hear Christmas carols and Christmas celebration itself.

I once experienced my Christmas holiday in Melbourne, Australia, in the year of 2001. It was coming along with my cousin's wedding party at Crown hotel. I was a bit disappointed with the atmosphere there. It wasn't as merry as I used to see on TV. There were only 4 employees of the hotel sang some Christmas songs instead of a choir. I was sure a five-star hotel could afford a choir to please their guests. But well, never mind. Probably it was because most of their guests came for casino entertainment instead listened to annoying Christmas carols performed by children choir with shabby uniform. Same ambience I quickly found in the city. Ah maybe because it was summer. Snowy white Christmas can only be found in States. Boo. It's not fair. Not at all.

Back then in 2002, I spent about two weeks at Genting, Malaysia. Thank God it was different with what I got in Melbourne. It was merrier and crowder than Melbourne. I supposed it's the cold weather (including the fog!) which gave me a little pleasure about white Christmas. Nice. They also had a big white Christmas tree at the lobby of Highland hotel. Cool.

However, none of holidays above let me to take a picture with Santa claus. *sob* I have never had a picture with Santa. So sad.

Santa is my favorite character during Christmas. Why? Cos in my opinion, he is an icon of hope for everybody. Even most time I always know that Santa gives presents for children only. I'm not a child anymore, but I always believe in Santa. It's not about the presents, socks, chimney, or reindeers, it's all about Santa lightening hope in everyone's heart.

Christmas is an event to meet and greet with your family, relatives, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. Everyone is urged to be home on Christmas day, to gather with the whole family members.

By the way, Santa, could you give me best Christmas holiday I have never had before? FYI: I've never been to States during Christmas ;)

Merry Christmas anyone! Hope y'all have the best holiday ever! Happy holiday!

(Picture is taken from Free Greetingcards)

Remember the Jakarta Riots of May 1998

Disclaimer: just another piece of mind. No offence, provoking, or any other improper use of this post is justifiable. The originality of the pictures are undetermined. One thing for sure, the May 13-14, 1998 Tragedy is truly happened.


I got this e-mail from a friend. I didn't understand what they wrote since it was written in Chinese characters (and yet I've found the English translation here), but still I was quite shocked when I saw the pictures. I'm telling you in advance; it's gonna be very frightening, so if you afraid of blood and violence, DO NOT click to enlarge the image.


I just make some highlights of what they wanted to deliver within the message;

Tsunami & earthquake that happened in Indonesia are punishment from God. Why should we help them? Don't you still remember what those Indonesians did to Chinese girls on May 13-14, 1998?


Now they feel back the pain when families lost their love one... "God had shown his sign"...

I can sense the anger, hatred, and enormous negative feelings of the author which is very obvious from the message. No doubt.

Jakarta riots of May 1998. An assault in the middle of Indonesia's continuous economic collapse. Mass rapes of ethnic Chinese women and also girls. (read also: BBC News - Special Report) A lot of fear.

I don't have much to say. I'm sure there are still a lot of various sad stories all over the world like World War II (when Nazi did mass killing of Jewish), Tian Nan Men (China), Iraq War, and many more. Jakarta riots of May 1998 is one of Indonesia's stain that will always be remembered. No matter what, the mob are uncivilized people who have no sense of humanity.

As an educated and civilized people, I'd like to share to all of you, let us together sharing love and making peace all over the world so that this kind of story will never repeat in the future. Hopefully.

Commitment to Perfection

Today's discerning woman wants to have it all; beauty, career, man, and good social life. With a career to call her own and a hectic social calendar that's ever changing, her desires are many, her aspirations plenty. Driven by a passion to experience all that life has to offer, she continually strives to feel and look her very best.

But as every woman knows, looking good has its share of challenges. Every day, our skin battles environmental elements, stress, lifestyle habits and the natural process of ageing − all of which cause wrinkles, pigmentation, dryness, radiance, and a dull skin tone. What every woman needs is a good skincare which presents her with effective solutions for her skin problems.

I often deal with acne as the most frequent skin problem on my face. My skin-type is combination of normal and oily skin (on "T" zone). Some says it's good to have oily skin because the oil can be very useful as natural anti-ageing e.g. to prevent wrinkles rather than dry skin; of course with a good skin treatment. On the old days, my mom and aunties forbade me from using any cosmetics other than a facial wash. They said cosmetics are bad for my skin face. I was in.

Acne has been being my biggest enemy since high school. And FYI, I had undergone various treatments and went to few dermatologists to get rid of them. Unfortunately they all ended up in the same results; the acnes cannot be removed permanently.

Along with my knowledge upgrade at med-school, I have a conclusion saying Propionibacterium acnes goes hand-in-hand with the hormonal changes of puberty which result in acne.

An increased responsiveness to androgenic hormones leads to increased sebum production plus increased keratinization and desquamation in pilosebaceous ducts. Blockage of ducts turns them into sacs in which P.acnes and other members of the normal flora (e.g. micrococci, yeasts, staphylococci) multiply. P.acnes acts on sebum to form fatty acids and peptides, which together with enzymes and other substances released from bacteria and polymorphs, cause the inflammation. Comedones (blackheads in popular terminology) are greasy plugs composed of a mixture of keratin, sebum, and bacteria and capped by a layer of melanin.

The antibiotics used to treat acne are usually one of the tetracyclines, or erythromycin which includes long-term administration. Other treatments include skin care, keratolytics and, in severe cases, synthetic vitamin A derivatives such as isotretinoin. Acne can be a problem for teenagers, but often disappears in older age groups as the sebaceous follicles become less active.

Source: Medical Microbiology, updated third edition (2004); by Cedric Mims, Hazel M Dockrell, Richard V Goering, Ivan Roitt, Derek Wakelin, Mark Zuckerman

Nowadays I have a beauty kit containing basics cosmetics and skincare to protect my skin from direct sunlight, dryness, free radicals, and other damage. Here's the list.

1. Purifying cleanser & toner No.7 (Boots)
2. Facial wash (Radiante)
3. Eye-repair serum concentrate (Radiante)
4. Balancing aqua gel Daily V No.7 (Boots)
5. Compact powder (Shiseido)
   
6. Make up base SPF 8 (Faceshop)
7. Eye shadow (Bodyshop)
8. Blush on (Faceshop)
   
9. Blush shimmer puff (Bodyshop)
10. Lip moisture (Smackers)
11. Lipstick - pink (Nina Ricci)
12. Lipgloss (Nina Ricci)
    
13. Oil Control Film Paper (Clean&Clear)
14. Sunblock SPF 40 (ROC)
15. Eye make-up remover (Bodyshop)
16. Green tea body lotion (Ginvera)
17. Lemongrass deodorising foot spray (Bodyshop)

Too little to fulfill the commitment of perfection!

Moolah, Booty, and Me

Moolah* and booty* are my new vocabularies from watching MTV Mobbed! LOL. Regarding English is my second language, I hope you can understand how excited I was when I know new casual words (read: slang) in English. *giggling*

I've just got home from mall and got nothing in my hands. My mom had strictly given me an alert in advance not to do shopping. *sob* First I thought she was kidding, but then from her eyes I realized she mean it a lot. Thus all I can do is window shopping; store-to-store. I'm interested with Oasis sunglasses and red handbag, DKNY green apple perfume, ZARA flat shoes,... and Gucci! Aha, frankly I was a bit afraid to enter the boutique since I didn't intend to buy at all. I simply wanted to take a look around. Like many high-class-branded boutiques, a personal shop assistant accompanied me to help me look for what I wanted. All I have to do is pointing out my finger to the display items, and she will bring it to me along with short explanation about the product and the price. Ah I really wish to buy and somehow I just think how fortunate Paris Hilton is to be able to buy everything she wants in a wink.

The conclusion is I need to have a lot of moolah to be able to get booties. (Do I look like English teacher giving you guys an English lecture? Well excuse me if I do. Didn't mean to.)

Another piece of mind, I was wondering how to manage my salary if I love shopping a lot? Whoa! In this situation, what I want to buy usually pretty expensive. *gold digger wannabe* Well you have to admit high class boutiques give (almost) perfect service than flea market. I amazed when I saw (on TV) how Harrods gives service to its customers; personal shop assistant, private room with cozy couch and glasses of wine. Even sometimes I'm already happy to buy things when sale season comes, I hate to seek things in the middle of crowd. Bite me.

Glossary:
*moolah = $$$ (money)
*booty = exclusive merchandise

P.S: dear friends, if you reckon I'm mistaken over the definitions, please tell me. Thanks in advance!

Dial-up to ADSL

I've switched my internet connection from dial-up to ADSL, because there is a great offer program from November 10 to December 31, 2006 called Formula 5. It's a product of PT.TELKOM which happens to be the largest telecommunication company in Indonesia. The program offers some benefits if you finally decide to be a subscriber; free activation fee, more quotas for limited connection, and 40% discount (Jakarta) for the first 3-month fee. I have Speedy Limited Personal with 1 GB quota. Not bad. I was having a lot of expensive charges (for ages!) due to dial-up connection. Y'know, internet is one of my essential needs in regular basis such as updating blog :D

As for the modem, I've bought Aztech DSL600 EU with 1 Ethernet port and 1 USB for IDR 485,000. I've been using this ADSL for one week and so far I only meet some problems. First, like any other ADSL provider in Indonesia, Speedy sometimes is down due to full access, busy network, or something like that (as the customer service said). It can be for hours or sometimes along the day (so-called office hours). Secondly, I couldn't sign in to instant messenger in last few days and it was detected as MSN error code 0x81000306; failed due to connection. I already tried to solve it myself by following the directions of the site and got stuck. Finally I got the answer, it was Speedy's fault. I contacted its customer service and somehow their answer pissed me off. They didn't have any idea how long it takes to solve the problem. Nevertheless, I find Speedy has faster connection than my previous dial-up and more reliable for downloading big files (excluding its down time).

The instant messenger stuffs; I really hate to use MSN web messenger because it takes time to load my message and when the server is busy, they sign me out without my permission. Gah. Thus I seek for another attempt to be able to sign in to my messenger. Yet I find meebo, a multi protocol instant messenger which is lighter and more reliable than MSN web messenger.

However, some features from your original messenger may not be available such as voice chat or video conference. I also have downloaded Trillian, another multi protocol instant messenger in real meaning. I mean, you can sign in to your messenger account at Yahoo, MSN, AIM, IRC, and ICQ at the same time. Trillian 3.1 is a free software and can be downloaded here.

P.S: The problem solves today. I can sign in to my Windows Live Messenger. Yippie!