A Few Days Without Social Media

So last week I deactivated my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Path. The deactivation period was varied. If not because I want to celebrate the achievement of numero uno person in my office I wouldn't have activated my Instagram.

So how's life without social media?
It's wonderful.
I came home to have dinner, shower and then sleep. Yes, I got perfect sleeping time. Waking up in the morning without checking social media and straightly go to the bathroom.
Life without distraction was peaceful.
I got my focus to do my task. Much more productive.

As an avid user of social media, you guys don't know how much it impacts me to just take a break for a few days.
Sadly, Twitter has a limit for deactivating period, it only gives you a month for a break. Deactive more than a month, and your account will be deleted.

There are some reasons why I still reluctant to delete my social media. As for FB, it doesn't do any harm for me as I rarely checking it. And for Path, only certain people are on friend list, then again they don't post annoying content. It's rather difficult for me to avoid Instagram, why because I love photography, I love cats, I love the creativity people share on that platform. I can just go to Pinterest or Tumblr but I don't like Tumblr, as for Pinterest I only specify for several topics.
The struggle is to avoid being tempted checking social media once the phone is within my reach.

So what am I goin to do next?
Well, I don't know. Maybe I keep my social media on, maybe I'll take a break a little longer, maybe I delete it permanently, or maybe I get better at control myself over social media. Maybe.

But one thing for sure, taking a break from social media is definitely.....liberating.
Are you game for this?

ROoooArrr !!!

So this outfit contains 3 of my favourite items:

1. "Macan Cisewu" sock. When I found out there was local produsen who sell a sock with macan cisewu face printed on it I just couldn't resist to buy.  

2. Embroidery tiger design on oversized sweatshirt by H&M. The size of the sweatshirt is actually XXXL, but it's so cute and I love sweatshirt so... 

3. Nike AF1. I'm obsessed with Nike AF1. Period. I don't have to explain this legendary classic shoes. Oh, and btw, I've been craving for this shoes more than a year, but during that period my size never available on Nike Store. So when one of my friend's friend went to Japan, I dropped a purchase request.

So it's my on-the-go outfit.... 

Love Yourself

Sometimes we make mistakes,

sometimes we get so lazy to do our task,

sometimes we take for granted all the blessing come into our life,

and other action or decision that will lead to regret later.

So I just found the key to avoid ourselves from having regret over the decision we made.

it's simply by loving ourselves.

Now how we mostly define love is reflected with how we want to give the best, be it for parents, family, significant other, pet, or anything. 

You want to keep them happy, satisfied, having the best, all the efforts made come down to one purpose: to bring joy over their life.

This does apply to nonliving things as well, we might have some favorite toys, stuff, anything. All we do to keep our belonging we love the most is to treat it pleasantly.

However, we might forget to love ourselves first.

This is the key I've been missing out during my whole life, until this thought stroke my mind during my contemplation not long ago.

Basically, anything we do for our life should be based on the amount of love we give to ourselves.

We can apply it from the small step on a daily issue before we move towards something bigger; life vision for instance.

Try to connect and relate anything with the love to ourselves when we take an action.

I'd start from the simplest thing; 

• if you love yourself and you want to have a good life span you ain't gonna eat recklessly. Perhaps you have eaten McD's burger, fries, and chicken two days ago and now you are craving for it because the salty fries, the crunchy chicken, and the delicious patty make your mouth watering, but then you think about the consequence in the future how unhealthy those junk for your body so you turn your direction into another resto which offers healthier menu, that's how to love yourself.

• If you love yourself you'd do your best for your job because you don't want to make all the blood, sweat and tears you went through during the process go in vain. You might be so lazy or demotivated but you realize if you don't perform well it might harm your career because when the company sees no passion in their employee they don't bother to consider promotion not to mention hold your position. Instead of being lazy, you start to look for a better opportunity or just giving the best, that’s how to love yourself.

• If you love yourself, you ain't gonna surround yourself with the people whom you know that they are wrong since the beginning besides bring no merit because you know yourself is much more valuable. We are becoming who we are because the amount of time and quality we spend with the surrounding and when you know your surrounding give no value for your present and future life even at some point might jeopardize your life you decide to lessen your time around he/she/them, that's how to love yourself.

Loving ourselves first drives us to think about the future two or three steps forward during the decision making process.

This is not loving ourselves in terms of narcissistic way nor being self-centered, it's about acknowledging that our existence means something and we deserve to get the best from ourselves.

We don't have to master everything, we just have to know what's not good and what might be harm to our future and having the determination to avoid that.



Medan, June 4th 2017.

Sweater Weather

I know, this blog post's title sounds so boring but I can't think any of another title as sweater is my fave outfit, no matter what the weather is, to be honest.
Anyway, this is just my regular outfit tho I change my style to be a lil bit girly on some occasion. I also prefer to carry my backpack rather than having handbag cuz it's just practical, I also wish to collect more colour of Kanken backpack, maybe it's redundant but I believe with their quality so I'm sure I will use it for a long period.

Not So Bad - Badminton

So I had this interest towards badminton. I still recall every childhood memory when I was screaming for Susi Susanti or Taufik Hidayat after they beat the opponent with their powerful drop shot or tricky net shot, watched them on television while standing and jumping as if my chant from home would help them reach victory. I ever dreamed of being a professional athlete...hey, a 7yo kid can dream of anything, right? They are truly inspiration anyway.

Ever since I terminate my subscription in one of fitness club here I rarely do sport. Well, if yoga and zumba can be considered as sports...

However, here in my new office, there is a sport hall which consists of 3 badminton courts, 4 ping-pong tables, and a billiard. Along with my colleague, we play badminton after office hour every Friday. Sure I'm just an amateur, I don't wish to be a pro either as I dreamed when I was 7. During the first game, my arm felt so painful immediately, I just remember that it might have been 7 years or more since I play badminton. But that's okay, cuz people say practice makes permanent.

One more thing I realize is that we can create simple happiness by doing something we do really enjoy. Yes it is tiring, but I'm just happy that I can go back to do something I like since I was a kid. I feel refreshed and more energized.

Another good news is, my dad will come to J-town and bring me a brand new racket special for me.

#tearsofjoy

Seoul's Underground Street Style Shop

Seoul is one of the best place to shop fashion stuff.

The photos above are two captures of one of the street style shop in Seoul located in the basement.

Where it is?

Sadly, I question that too.

Although those are my photos (taken secretly and quickly), I forgot the exact location of this store neither I know what the store's name is. All I can remember that this is located somewhere around Hongdae. Which is ridiculous because Hongdae has probably almost a hundred of stores/boutiques.

How did I find out?

When I was strolling and wandering around I spotted a cart full of shirts and acceccories being displayed without any shopkeeper who look after it.

What a genius trick. 

It was very intriguing especially with the faintly heard music which came from the basement.

It was at night, not one of a crowded district in Hongdae. Somehow I was afraid if the basement was some kind of wicked club full of gettho, drug dealers, alcohol and drunk people on the floor and they use that cart as a bait to invite the victim for human trafficking or so (ok I'll stop I watch too much drama). But curiousity killed me. 

I came in eventually.

And then I went down the stairs while holding my breath...and suddenly a bit shocked with the appearance of scary statue and crazy LED that welcome me.

I saw an aisle (the first photo above) where the fashion items were being displayed and I felt like I wanted to jump because of excitement and then I kept walking straight ahead until I found an entrance door to the main store on the left side.

Wow, apparently the store wasn't so quiet as it look from the outside and I felt relieved that it was just a normal apparel store not the club as portrayed in my wild imagination. There were few western customers in the store and one shopkeeper. 

The store probably looks scary for some people, but for street style fan like me, it's definitely a heaven.

 

The store sells literally everything: bag, hat, beannie, sweatshirt, tee, sneakers, pants, glassess, hair acceccories, smartphone case, ring, you name it.

And yes, I found the dupe of KTZ tee (the price was $40 or so tho) which being worn SO MANY TIMES by SO MANY K-POP STARS. 

Now I regret that I didn't buy anything from there.

   

Back to the store, because I don't write this post for nothing, does anyone know what is the name of this store pretty pleaseee???

Stripes

I really love anything that goes with stripes. And yes, in my previous post I wore stripey outfit as well.

Btw, I find it shopping in male section is more fascinating than in female section.

Who is AAA?

Sabtu pagi ini saya terbangun dengan kepala yang berat, mungkin karena kelelahan karena tempo hari saya melakukan banyak aktivitas mobile dalam sehari.

Anyway, karena bosan saya menyalakan tv dan seperti biasanya Waku-Waku Japan masuk dalam channel pilihan. Ketika layar berubah menampilkan WWJ, saya menyaksikan sebuah konser band Jepang dengan penonton yang masiv serta lautan lightstick di sebuah dome besar. Dari judul yang tertera dalam program channel menunjukkan bahwa konser itu adalah konser grup Jepang yang bernama AAA.

Kesan pertama yang membuat saya enggan mengganti channel adalah kekuatan vokal serta lagu mereka, saya bukan penggemar grup/idol Jepang, tapi first impression ketika mendengarkan musik mereka adalah saya langsung jatuh cinta. Lagu-lagu yang mereka bawakan terkadang sedikit mellow, terkadang enerjik dan poppy serta diiringi dengan efek-efek elektronik tapi semuanya sangat easy listening.

AAA (dibaca triple A, bukan jenis baterai, fyi di Korea juga ada boyband dengan nama AA yang dibaca double A, mungkin next ada single A? Kuartet A? whatever) ternyata adalah grup lawas yang sudah berdiri sejak 2005. Oke disini saya bertanya kepada diri sendiri: where in the world have you been all your life, Mariska??? Padahal AAA baru menggelar konsernya di Jakarta april lalu. Tapi ya sudahlah saya kan memang tidak update dengan industri musik Jepang. Kembali lagi ke AAA, mereka adalah co-ed grup yang beranggotakan 5 laki-laki dan 2 perempuan di bawah label Avex Trax yang setau saya sama besarnya dengan Johnny's Entertainment. Ternyata Avex Trax menjalin kerjasama dengan SM Entertainment sehingga artis-artis kpop yang debut di Jepang juga berada di bawah label Avex Trax seperti BOA dan TVXQ.

source

Speaker Toilet Paper Roll

Bermula dari santai-santai cantik sambil scrolling timeline twitter, saya menemukan sebuah postingan dari salah satu akun twitter yang saya follow. 

Balada Mata Kuliah Ilmu Ekonomi

Apakah di antara kalian pernah  merasa ada satu mata kuliah yang susahnya minta ampun, yang tiap mengikuti perkuliahannya bikin deg-deg serr?

aka Kratingdaeng kalo di Indonesia, saya beli ini sebagai persediaan suplemen agar kuat belajar saat di Korea

Rangkuman Singkat 2014

Sejujurnya saya penasaran, apakah saya bukan satu-satunya orang yang gemar melamun sambil memikirkan hidup...namun jika mengingat bahwa ada sekitar 7 miliar penduduk yang menempati bumi saya rasa saya bukanlah satu-satunya orang yang gemar melamun sambil memikirkan kehidupan. Pertanyaan berikutnya, apakah kegiatan ini ada faedahnya? Kalau Isaac Newton pada saat itu tidak sedang duduk-duduk santai sambil melamun lalu ada apel jatuh di dekatnya, dia tidak akan menemukan teori gravitasi. Tapi saya bukan Isaac Newton dan juga bukan ilmuwan. Lantas apa yang saya hasilkan ketika sedang melamun sambil berpikir tentang kehidupan?

Namsan Tower: Another Seoul's Icon

Just like Tokyo Tower in Japan, or Eiffel in France, Korea has its tower in Seoul the capital city called Namsan Tower.

Korean Fashion Brand: Pancoat

                                    please ignore the snow drop on my beannie   

Sebenarnya sudah lama saya ingin menulis at least satu post saja tentang fashion Korea, selain karena saya senang sekali mengamati dunia fashion, pastinya akan menarik untuk melihat trend fashion apa yang sedang berkembang ketika saya tinggal di Korea Selatan karena perbedaan musim atau trend dengan Indonesia. Tinggal di tengah-tengah anak muda Korea yang sadar fashion sedikit mewarnai gaya berpakaian saya, bagaimana tidak? Karena barang-barang fashion yang dijual di Korea rata-rata sesuai dengan trend saat itu, jadinya apa yang saya beli mau tidak mau mengikuti trend yang sedang hype.

Charmsori Gramophone and Edison Science Museum

gramophones in Edison Museum

Inhale..exhale, I have finished an internship in one of the place where many people want to work at. It was a great experience, glad to know many cool people there and the most important thing is now I know how working in high level office feels like. After I graduate from university, that cubicle where I used to stay during internship should be mine, HUAHAHAHA *amen!!!*

Btw, as I mentioned here that I changed my playlist annually, I’ve just changed all kpop songs in my iPod with EDM songs. I like listening to EDM songs nowadays because these new DJs bring a fresh air of EDM, especially ZEDD with his achievement in Grammy Award with Clarity. And I’ve just found out that last year Indonesia had a big show called Djakarta Warehouse Project where all the cool DJs were gathering and play their music along with a great LED effect in front of thousands audience, there were striptease dancers on the stage as well wtf. But I personally don’t like being in the middle of such crowd. Girls with their inner sneaking from their see-through outfit, mini pants, smoke, alcohol, all those crowd is just not so me. I like the music, I like dancing, but I don’t like being in the crowd.

Talking about the revolution of music, I am so amazed that artist are so creative when it comes to music making. From traditional instrumental to electronic devices that now people are being able to create music just from in front of their computer screen, it brings my memory back when I had a trip in Chamsori Gramphone and Edison Museum in Korea...

Kenapa tinggal di Korea Selatan itu enak?

Tulisan ini berisi pandangan saya selama tinggal di Korea Selatan. Kenyamanan public service dan kultur masyarakat yang saya rasakan selama di Korea sering membuat saya mendambakan Indonesia untuk segera berubah menuju yang lebih baik. Mari satu persatu saya utarakan alasan-alasan tersebut:

Sneaky Pinocchio

Seoul subway is always crowded and busy, there are 9 main lines in the subway, there are around 5 millions passengers coming in and out the train or transfer from line to line every day. As Seoul the metropolitan city so I think the government concerns on making the subway become more comfortable and not being another stressful place to go, that's why there are many underground shopping centers which integrated to the subway station and a lot of convenience stores, snack shops, and vending machines inside the subway station.

When I was waiting for the train to arrive at the Seoul subway, there were some benches provided for the people who are waiting. There were some intricate depictions of cartoon characters on the right side of each bench which I assume that it's one of the way to make the subway stations look more interesting instead of being stuffy.

There was a moment that caught my attention. There was a guy who was so into his smartphone, as almost all Koreans do when they are inside the public transport, sitting closely next to Pinocchio sculpture on the bench while Pinocchio was looking toward to the right side on where the guy was playing his smartphone. I took a picture immediately of it secretly in a flash so that the guy wouldn't be aware of my action. This moment was so funny because the Pinocchio looked as if sneaking and being curious to death of what the guy was looking at his phone screen. If I could narrate that moment, it would be like: "hey dude what are you looking at? I want to see, I want to see, let me take a look!" said the clingy Pinnochio while elbowing that guy in the black coat.

Meeting EXO: Fans's Dream Come True

charismatic leader   

Do you have any idol?

How do you admire your idol?

By appreciating their work like buying their album, watching their movie, or get inspired by their fashion style?

Having some of their posters on your wall?

Having their biography?

Buying all the magazine which contain your idol?

I was into kpop, yeah I'm still listening to kpop sometimes but not as much as I did in the past 2 years.

I still remember during early days when I was a huge fan of some kpop group, I was crying while watching their concert or music video from my computer screen, deprived of meeting them in real.

But what dragged me into kpop was not because of the beautiful face of the member, I like listening to music a lot (who doesn’t tho?), my playlist had been changed several times as I grew up. From hip hop to punk, metal, electronic pop, brit pop, it changed annually. Oh, and liking boyband isn’t a new thing for me. When I was 7, yes...7 years old, I was a huge fan of Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, and Westlife. I got influenced by my sister, she had all the cassete of those boybands. And when she played the cassete on player in our room while she was studying, I was dancing along the music as if I was one of Backstreet Boys’s member or back dancer at least, lol.

Back to kpop, I was really amazed by their choreography and the catchy beat of its music, it was something fresh to me. So I started liking and digged out more about kpop, not just 2 or 3 boybands that I had follow...but more and more and I even knew the newest group that appear in kpop industry.

Then I started to buy their original albums, if they released new album I always tried to order in the first batch in order to get the limited original poster. I also bought the korean magazine which has them on photoshoot and interview session, did I read them? No, I was blind about korean back then. Just looking at the pictures and touching the paper and knowing the smell of its magazine made me happy already.

I covered my wall with their posters. When I saw them, sometimes I thought when would I meet them, it seemed impossible since I don’t live in Korea and if they have concert in Indonesia there’s no guarantee that I could watch them, and even if I come to their concert we will still have a distance between the stage and audience.

But who knows about what will happen in the future?

I thought going to South Korea was something impossible for me, but apparently God gave me that chance.

Tbh, watching kpop concert was on my last list when I was in Korea, I was planning to watch SMTOWN Week of EXO (one of the rising boyband at the moment) on christmas, but because I was really busy and my interest towards kpop had been decreasing few months before I came to Korea, I decided to cancel buying the ticket.

Surprise surprise, when I went to Incheon Airport, I saw many girls with their dslr camera and expensive lenses were waiting in front of arrival gate, they were soooo many, some of them were standing above the chair and some of them were bringing their own folding chair in order to be able to see the idol when they come out from arrival door to take some good snaps  for their fansite (fansite is a website managed by fangirl where they post the pictures they took of their idol).

I eventually found out that EXO will came out soon,

What’s On Trend In Korea?

What’s on trend in Korea??

it’s card holder!!!

yup, tempat kartu ini lagi nge-hits banget di korea dan bisa ditemuin dimana aja apalagi di toko aksesoris. anak muda korea lagi pada suka pake ini kemana-mana..

gunanya apa sih?

tentu saja buat tempat kartu kita, bisa buat kartu atm, kartu credit (kalo punya), T-Money alias kartu buat naik bus di korea selatan that u don’t need to pay cash, kartu remi, kartu apa ajalah yang penting gaya. hehehe

sebenernya cukup praktis sih, apalagi buat mereka yang emang suka bayar apa-apa pake kartu atau bepergian naik transportasi umum jadi ga perlu repot-repot buka dompet. Card holder ini tinggal dikalungin aja di leher kamu.

harganya berkisar antara 5.000 won ~ 10.000 won, tergantung modelnya gimana dan beli dimana, hehe…

saya pun ga ketinggalan ikut-ikutan beli ini, cuma masalahnya…kalo pulang ke Indonesia, bakal kepake nggak? 

gak mungkin kan bawa-bawa kartu atm atau kartu penting terus jalan-jalan di tempat keramaian umum atau naik bus kota, bisa-bisa langsung dijambret  :)))

dibeli~~ dibeli~~

my card holder tampak depan

tampak belakang

Pepero Day

Jadi hari ini  bukanlah hari Senin yang seperti biasanya bagi kebanyakan orang Korea.

Hari ini adalah hari “Pepero Day”

apa sih Pepero Day itu?

saya juga baru tau setelah dapat pepero itu sendiri. ha ha ha #cupu

jadi ternyata Pepero Day itu semacam perayaan di Korea Selatan seperti valentine, biasanya yang tuker-tukeran Pepero itu couple… (cerita lengkapnya baca di WIKI aja kali ya) Pepero sendiri adalah nama snack stick coklat yang diproduksi oleh Lotte, mirip Pocky gitu deh…kalo di Indonesia lebih terkenal Pocky ya..btw disini Pocky harganya hampir 2 kali lipat dari harga rupiah, kalo Minute Maid Pulpy Orange harganya 3x lipat, huhuhu…

Rasanya Pepero kaya gimana? 

enak sih…yang paling populer itu bukan yang plain coklat, tapi biasanya ada taburan almond atau cookies gitu.

dan hari ini saya juga kebagian Pepero hehehe…dari guru-guru dan temen korea.

"apa yang tidak kamu suka dari Indonesia?"

Saat itu adalah hari Chuseok, hari libur nasional orang Korea. Karena hari libur nasional otomatis restoran asrama kampusku tutup karena semua juru masak sedang libur, sehingga kami para mahasiswa international diberi kupon makan gratis di restoran di samping kampus sebagai kompensasi. 

Sambil menunggu pesananku datang aku berbincang-bincang dengan teman semejaku, salah satunya teman Indonesia, beberapa menit kemudian datang seorang pramuniaga cantik mengantarkan pesanan ke meja kami. Tiba-tiba dia bertanya apakah aku orang Indonesia. Setelah mengetahui bahwa diriku orang Indonesia, dia langsung menyatakan bahwa dirinya pernah tinggal di Jakarta.

Aku histeris.

Dia histeris.

Perasaan bahagia langsung menghampiriku. 

Ini adalah pertama kalinya aku menjumpai orang korea yang bisa berbahasa Indonesia selama 3 minggu pertama tinggal disini.

Saat itu belum juga kusentuh makananku, aku dan dia larut dalam pembicaraan yang sangat exciting, tentunya dalam bahasa Indonesia.

Dia cantik, berambut panjang, kulitnya putih dan penampilannya sangat muda dan trendi layaknya remaja-remaja di Seoul.

Karena aku merasa tidak enak terlibat pembicaraan yang cukup lama dengan posisi yang tidak cukup nyaman, akhirnya aku menyatakan pada dia untuk melanjutkan pembicaraan setelah aku makan, toh saat itu dia juga harus membantu keluarganya (yang merupakan pemilik restoran tempat aku makan) membereskan meja-meja restoran.

Setelah aku selesai makan, kupanggil dia dan larutlah kami dalam pembicaraan yang semakin dalam, tentang bagaimana dia bisa bahasa Indonesia, sedang belajar di universitas mana, dll.

Dia bernama Sooji dan berusia 22th. Mengetahui dia lama tinggal di Indonesia, kutanyakan padanya apa yang paling dia tidak suka dari Indonesia.

aku mengira jawabannya mungkin di antara panasnya Indonesia, macetnya Jakarta, atau banjir.

Tapi jawaban dia adalah….betapa tidak nyamannya ketika dia sedang berjalan-jalan lalu tiba-tiba ada lelaki yang bersiul-siul atau memanggil dirinya. Dia bahkan bilang begini: “banjir itu nggak papa, tapi kalo aku lagi jalan itu lho, dipanggi-panggil. huh apa kamu manggi-manggil!” dengan aksen dan bahasa Indonesia yang agak lucu.

Aku sangat menyadari hal ini. Disini, aku pulang larut malam pun tak ada lelaki iseng menggoda dengan bersiul dan sebagainya. Sangat jauh berbeda ketika berada di Indonesia yang bahkan sudah berpakaian sopan dan tertutup pun masih saja digoda.

Di Korea Selatan, hal tersebut dianggap kurang ajar dan merupakan pelecehan seksual. Sang pria bisa saja dilaporkan ke polisi.

Penting bagi kita untuk merasa aman dan nyaman dimanapun kita berada terlebih lagi di negara sendiri.

Bukan bermaksud membandingkan, namun apa yang dikatakan Sooji sebenarnya cukup simpel tapi sangat masuk akal. Masalah kenyamanan ketika kita hidup di dalam sebuah society amatlah penting. Bagaimana kita bisa betah apabila berjalan di tempat yang ramai saja kita tidak merasa aman dan nyaman, apalagi jika berjalan di tempat atau jalan yang sepi. 

Dan orang-orang Indonesia khususnya laki-laki harus paham betul bagaimana mereka memperlakukan orang lain, bagaimana mereka menghargai kita sebagai perempuan, sebagai human being, sebagai pejalan kaki, dan tau bagaimana mereka menghindari melakukan sesuatu yang ternyata dapat membuat kaum hawa malu dan merasa dilecehkan. Namun sepertinya bersiul-siul atau menggoda perempuan yang sedang lewat merupakan hal yang “wajar” di Indonesia.

Bukan bermaksud seksis, tapi bukankah lelaki diharuskan melindungi kaum perempuan? bukannya membuat kita merasa takut dan tidak nyaman.