This blog has changed..

I have changed. This blog should changed.
For some time, I've learnt to think what is the purpose of doing the things that we do. There is no point of doing something that doesn't influence other people in a good way.
So I thought, what is the purpose of this blog? No, it's not to tell the world about me, nor to bored them with my "whinings". It shouldn't be.

The purpose of this blog, from now on, is to tell you the few life lessons I've learnt, so you yourself don't have to make the mistakes to learn them. Your life is too short for that.
By writing them here, I will also be always reminded about them.

My horoscope for today:

"Rest and relaxation are the order of the day today, Sagittarius, but since rest is not a part of your usual vocabulary, it would benefit you to go over recent problems and mistakes, and figure out what you've learned from them. Rethinking the significance of your experiences is a good thing, as long as you don't get caught up in what you should have done. There is nothing more counterproductive than turning your own feelings against you, and that's what you'll be doing if you dwell in negative spaces that, for all intents and purposes, no longer exist."

That brings us to the next discussion: What is it that you really want in your life?

Soundtrack of the day: The Fantasy by 30 Seconds to Mars

'The War' is here..

Much anticipated (for Echelon, at least) 30 Seconds to Mars' album is finally unveiled. As you might have heard, it's called 'This Is War'.It's quite a sensitive title, I'd say. With so many wars going on, people might get it all wrong.

So Jared tweeted (yes, he tweets and yes, I'm a follower) a review on it. Of course, it's a good review that he posted. But, let's face the truth: it's not their best album.
Well, they have only three albums so far, so they still have many chances.
You can have a peek of the songs here.

Their first single, Kings and Queens, is fine. But why am I always reminded of Iris everytime I hear it?
Long intro in Escape.. too Metallica. Even the title is from one of Metallica's songs. A tribute for the legendary metal band?
What's with 100 boys singing in 100 Suns? It might give a nice effect in The Kill, but sorry Jared, the magic wears off.
What's with the Westlife-y songs like Alibi (100 Suns too, actually)?
And what's with the album's cover, really?

Where's the soul of 30 Seconds to Mars that once lived in Fortification, Anarchy in Tokyo, Buddha for Mary, even From Yesterday?
It's beating only half-alive through Vox Populi and Stranger in A Strange Land. Their lyrics never fail, though. Love especially Stranger in A Strange Land.

"I'm a ghost, you're an angel."

Well, I'm not a musician, really, so can't really comment on their music. At least they don't start singing about love and broken-hearts. If they do, that'd be the last day I'm an Echelon.

Best birthday ever!

Aaaaargh..

Is IT next week already?
Can't believe it. Don't want to be. Just wanna stay this way.
I don't ask for sweet 17th always. Just this way. Can I?

Just a quick drop by..

..actually, just so this blog of mine isn't so dry.

I have this assignment where I have to write about our "evocative objects". It sound so grand, doesn't it, 'evocative'? Well, it's actually it only means "memorable items".
So I did. It turned out to be so corny. But somehow, in a weird way, I'm kind of proud that I can be so corny. So here it is, I just want to share with you:

Click to download

Pak SBY

Went to Indonesian Embassy today. The President of Indonesia, Pak Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (or more often called SBY), was dropping by Singapore. And he wanted to "meet" the Indonesian students here. I was there, with few others, to represent the Indonesian students from my campus. So there we were, "meeting" him.
Not so much of a meeting, not exactly. Cos we saw him, he didn't see us. We sit there listening to him, and he stands there, not exactly listening to us.

But anyway, it was a good experience. It's not everyday you can sit only 10 metres away from a president (without someone pointing you a gun).
One thing I noticed about him, he is indeed a very good orator (someone who give a speech). I find that smart people give good speeches. And SBY, he reminds me of Indonesian first president, Pak Soekarno. One who states important things, fervently, and somehow make people believe in what he says.
Oh, for Indonesians who's reading this, do you know that you can sms the President directly? Just sms 9949, and the President's secretary will sort out your smses (of course, if the smses are not important, it won't ever reach SBY).

Fine, fine.. no worries..

I just realized something: yeah, my last so-many posts in this blog are so depressing.
Even almost all posts in my other blog.
It does amazes me that it takes quite a while and quite a few people to nudge me for me to realize that my blog depresses people.

I need to make clarification: NO, my life is not bad. It's everything I want it to be at this point of time.
It just that every time something good and fun and exciting happens, I don't have time to write them in my blog. But when something annoying happens, all I want to do is rant it away.

And other reason why I don't want to tell all the good stuffs I'm enjoying, is because I don't want to come across as a brag.

And surely I don't want to exhibit all the good and great and sweet things my boyfriend did for and to me --I don't want to make my ex-suitors jealous (knock knock Mr. Felix S).

Talking about Mr. Sun, here is my reply for your comment:
-Isn't the right grammar should be 'I should've taken..'?
-I was just bothered by CERTAIN girls around me who fall into the bitchy gold-digger category. I feel pity for their boyfriends, and at the same time praying hard that I'm not subconsciously is one of them.
-You're right, I am confuse. Sorry to confuse you. Any enlightenment?

That should be all for now. Any dissatisfaction.. call my lawyer.

M + E ?

I stumbled (not really, I DO check his blog every once in a while) on my friend's blog and saw about a test he took to see his personality. I found it interesting, so I took it too. Here's the results..
Happy reading, folks! XD

Independent Thinkers are analytical and witty persons. They are normally self-confident and do not let themselves get worked up by conflicts and criticism. They are very much aware of their own strengths and have no doubts about their abilities. People of this personality type are often very successful in their career as they have both competence and purposefulness. Independent Thinkers are excellent strategists; logic, systematic and theoretical considerations are their world. They are eager for knowledge and always endeavour to expand and perfect their knowledge in any area which is interesting for them. Abstract thinking comes naturally to them; scientists and computer specialists are often of this type.

Independent Thinkers are specialists in their area. The development of their ideas and visions is important to them; they love being as flexible as possible and, ideally, of being able to work alone because they often find it a strain having to make their complex trains of thought understandable to other people. Independent Thinkers cannot stand routine. Once they consider an idea to be good it is difficult to make them give it up; they pursue the implementation of that idea obstinately and persistently, also in the face of external opposition.
Independent Thinkers are not the type who easily comes out of his shell. Speaking about their emotional life is also not one of their strong points. Anyway, social relationships are not particularly important to them; they are happy with just a few, close friends who find it easy to share their intellectual world. They find it difficult to establish new ties. In love, they need a lot of space and independence but this does not mean that their partner is not important to them. Independent Thinkers often make a cool and reserved impression on others; but this impression is deceptive: they can hardly bear it if people close to them should reject them. They prefer a harmonious, balanced relationship with a partner who shares their interests and with whom they can realise their visions.

Adjectives which describe your type: introverted, theoretical, logical, planning, rational, independent, intellectual, self-confident, analytical, structured, dogged, witty, resolute, self-critical, visionary, inventive, independent, unsociable, reserved, nonconformist, quiet, visionary, honest, demanding, hardworking

Career:
As an Independent Thinker, you are one of the introverted personality types. That is one of the reasons you prefer to work alone. This does not mean that you cannot be successful in a team, as well. For you, the task is most important and people who are involved come second. The contact with others, the necessity to adjust yourself to their daily changing sensitivities - all of it is just more gratuitous emotion that keep you from totally devoting yourself to those things that truly interest you: analyzing systems and policies, researching potentials for change, developing new ideas and implementing them in reality.

Here you differ from the second introverted Thinker type, the Analytical Thinker: You truly enjoy implementing your concepts and you enjoy the results. Therefore you should look for a work environment where you can accompany and expedite your ideas through to their conclusion. You consider difficult situations as challenges that really try your creativity and you frequently surprise people around you with genuinely incredibly bright ideas, rendering others speechless with their excellence. Your world consists of statistics, legitimacy, and systematics.

Considering all of this, your Thinker type is very praxis-oriented, and by no means lives on an intellectual ivory tower. You are not interested in theories not related to reality. As in chess, you are excellent at predicting the consequences of your methods in advance, and then choosing the appropriate alternative. Once you have made your decision on how to deal with a situation, you are totally willing to use your elbows and you don’t necessarily show any consideration for others. With that, you occasionally encounter resistance from other, less task-oriented colleagues that you quickly brush aside.

You resent routine jobs or monotonic order of events. You believe that they smother your creativity. If necessary, your determination and unusual ambition will convince you to acquiesce to the inevitable. Nevertheless, when choosing your profession, you should be mindful that your working environment is going to provide you with something new to learn and that your tasks are as varied as possible. Your strength lies in solving novel problems and not working on details. Nor should your curiosity ever be satisfied; just as fresh information is as important to you as the air you breathe, so is the feeling that you continuously expand and increase your competencies. An activity where you do the same thing in the same department with the same colleagues for 20 years is the worst fate that can possibly happen to a hungry mind.

L-O-V-E
For your partner, you are truly a hard nut to crack, and one has to give someone who goes through life as independent as you darn good reasons for a relationship before he/she deigns to at least consider it. You very slowly and judiciously develop trust and closeness to other people; whoever wants to win you needs a tremendous amount of patience and staying power.

Even once you begin to warm up to someone, one does not sense that for the longest time as you are uncomfortable and reluctant to display your feelings because you are not used to it. The cool, distanced, and somewhat arrogant vibes of all Thinkers are a little more pronounced with you and already sufficiently discourage many potential partners as they get frustrated and give up during the advanced phases of flirting - a shame because inside, you are not as indifferent and emotionless as you some- times appear, and sometimes your reserve simply hides your disappointment at the blindness and superficiality of the people around you.

Nevertheless, it is always a good idea for you to choose a partner very carefully and not blindly jump into an affair, because your demands are very high. You have a clear image of the “perfect relationship” and are not willing to deviate from that by even one millimeter to the right or the left. A sharp intellect that is equal to yours is the most important quality your partner must bring along. You need somebody in your life who inspires, stimulates, and always challenges you and with whom you can maintain an intensive intellectual companionship. Nothing will impress you more than competence, knowledge, and the willingness to learn because those are the traits that are truly important to you in your life. You are never really satisfied with your accomplishments, and always discover something about yourself that needs your improvement, where something new can be learned, and where you are not yet good enough.

Life is not fair --get over it

Welcome to the greatest show
Greatest show on earth
You've never seen before
Here the fairytale unfolds

Some time ago, I read a ‘readers’ page’ in a magazine, in which a counselor will answer readers’ life questions. In that particular section that I read was a letter from someone asking a solution for a problem he’s facing at work. Well, it’s not important what was being asked, but the answer was the one that intrigued me. The counselor said, ‘Go in front of the mirror, and repeat to yourself 20 times: Life isn’t fair, life isn’t fair.’
It’s true, isn’t it? There are so many things in this life that we can’t change no matter how unfair they are.

The super rich people who have more money than they could possibly spend, and some don’t even have to work for it. Girls with bad attitude that find themselves meek husbands. The smarties that get straight As just by reading the lecture notes once, while the others have to study day and night for the whole term only just so they can pass.

The combination of the first and second case is the one that get my attention (and the purpose of this blog being written): the gold-diggers. They somehow are able to find, attract, and hook those kind of guys. Not only the boyfriends are willing to pay, but they are also gladly being abused too, both physically and mentally. It’s not that I’m materialistic (or I am, if you’d like to see it that way or call it so, whatever). But it is somewhat painful to see total bitches from hell get all the stuffs they want, paid by their not-so-gullible boyfriends. Whereas I’ve know quite a few girls who are so gentle, so nice, such perfect girlfriends, but they’re never being spoilt by their boyfriends. Some never even got any present from their boyfriend. How ridiculous is that?

I had a little talk with my best friend the other day, and we agreed that these days, guys are stingier than girls and they are more selfish than ever. They whine when they have to pay for the date, dinner or movie tickets, yet they buy “beauty items” to groom themselves. Difficult to say, though; who’s to say that it’s the boyfriend that has to take care of the girl materially? What’s the purpose of women emancipation at the workplace, then?

P.S: Here is the example of what I'm talking about ;)

And here is the funny version of it.