Introverted and content?

Hello blogspot. Again, it has been a while since I posted anything at all (I didn't count my last post as a legit post because it was filled with mindless pms-ey female rambling. Forgive me.)

Anyway, recently I bought the book above, "The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." The book basically discuss how in this society, we idealise people who are bold and loudspoken and people who tend to be soft-spoken tend to have a more "negative" perception from society. Susan Cain then explained that "soft-spoken" people can be powerful as well and that many successful people out there are introverts.

Anybody who have met me in real life would  know that I have a very quiet and kept personality. I participate only when it's absolutely necessary in most cases and I talk only when I really have things to say. Some people (mostly my friends of course) would tease me on being anti-social or shy. There are moments when I believe the first one is true. As for the latter, I know I was truly shy as a kid but I also know that right now, I grew out of that shyness. Of course, there are still moments that will still get me and events that gets me tingling from giddiness and embarrassment, but overall, I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin.

Back to the topic of anti-social, I do sometimes think that I must dislike people at some point. But I know that it isn't the case because I do look for company often and I know I need people in my life. However, I tend to hate large group gatherings and I prefer one or two on one outings with the same three to five people in my life. I HATE small talks, I cannot emphasize that enough. Stating the obvious over and over again is tedious yet that's the mechanism that we, as social beings, should use in order to break the ice and know one another. From the surface first then the core. I've known the term "introversion" for a while now. Before I knew that though, I always thought this quiet and "anti-social" tendency of mine is a stage of growing up and eventually I will be a "normal" and "social" person. However, I'm 19 turning 20 now. I handle social situations better than I used to but there are still many things that I don't understand and that I can't ever get from many of my outspoken friends (and for an introvert, I strangely have a lot of extroverted friends.)

For example, I can't understand my friends who can say whatever that is unnecessary and pointless at the most random times just to fill 5 seconds of silence. I personally would let silence linger for a bit rather than saying something that is complete nonsense. I can't understand the ease in which some of my friends share their personal stories to a large group of people or to people who they just met. My personal life is a big thing for me and I prefer to keep much of it out of the limelight. I can't understand my friends who can keep shallow conversations going for a long time. Once you say what you gotta say, what else can you say, seriously. I can't understand my friends who feel so helpless when they're alone in a crowd. I feel pretty comfortable being alone. In fact, sometimes I feel like I look more in my element when I am alone rather than in a big group of people whom I don't know really well.

Those are just some of the extroverted things that bugs my introverted mentality. The list goes on, but for the sake of length, I'll keep it to myself.

Anyway, I thought I was weird and abnormal before I found out that introversion is a type of personality that humankinds have and that I'm not alone with this type of mentality. Ever since then, I love reading accounts of introverted people because I never knew that I can be so identical with many people and that it is not a "disorder" of any kind- it's normal in a different way. Yes, being with people drains me and alone time is necessary like air and food, but I do love being around people. Just, not for a very long period of time.

The book above comforted me in a way that it gives me hope in my future. I always have this assumption that because of my personality, I automatically hinder myself from the highest success I can possibly achieve. However, after reading a bit of that book, I realize that if I just handle things the way my personality is and give it my best without trying to "conform" to extraversion ways, I won't limit myself from reaching the stars. I can be a successful introvert.

I'm actually quite thankful for my personality in a way. Because I'm an introvert, I never see the need to feel "it" or be in the "big crowd". I'm pretty happy being myself and watching from the sideline as people try to conform to trends overtime and change themselves for the social norms. I never see the need to drink or smoke for social reasons.

Of course there are the downs with this personality - people often think you're stuck up, quiet or shy. One of the things that I find difficult, and I think this is just for me and my personality, is that it's difficult for me to deal with extreme personal relationship change with people. I personally find it hard to let go or lose a close friendship I had once with a person because for me, finding people I can truly trust and be open with is hardcore difficult. It's really sad because it's a hard work for me to be able to open up to someone completely and not being able to do that anymore with that particular person just saddens me. But life happens. Severed friendship/relationship ties is probably one of the things that blew me the hardest in life.

But overall I am pretty content with being an introvert. My way of thinking is different than most people and I know people whom I can really trust. For my fellow introverted peeps, you don't need to conform to extraversion to live. Just be yourself and the sooner you accept who you are, the better things will be. I did. I found that the moment I accept my introversion and just act the way my personality would want me to, I gain more friends than before. As long as you're nice to people in general, how outspoken you are wouldn't matter much. Unless you're looking for the spotlight, then, that's a different story.

A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.

(Quote by Tecumseh.)

It has been a while dear blogspot. I think this blog will be my true personal blog from now on because I feel like every other social media accounts I have are being hunted down by everyone in my professional life.

Anyway, this post will be a collection of rambling.

I'm not a strong person, I really am not. I hate how being human actually requires a lot of pretention and acting. There's only so much my brain can take but at the same time, giving in would only prove how weak I am. And it's a dog eat dog world out here and I have no choice but to pretend that I'm strong, despite wanting to cry.

But life is unfair like that right? 

Sometimes I have a half thought of adopting a life full of apathy. Sometimes I think, "why do we have emotions when in the end, it crumbles us down."

Re-Post: A Glimpse of Zaul Haq

So this is something I've written for my class blog: ardinnyrazania.wordpress.com that I thought I'd share in here. Just because I love people who shows appreciation to the simple life that they have. This is a post I have to make for my journalism class. All images and information are collected and done by me. 

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A Glimpse of Zaul Haq

by ardinnyrazania

Dedication and a little sacrifice is necessary in order to make a living, this is his story…

In one of the dimly lit corridors of Doha’s Souq Waqif, the tiny echoes of the sound of sewing machines can be heard. Inside a small shop, a Bangladesh tailor was immersed in his work with the sewing machine laid out on the table in front of him.

Zaul Haq came to Qatar from Bangladesh in 1984. “Business is better,” he stated as his reason for leaving his hometown behind, “it was a big opportunity to be here.”

Haq and a sewing machine, an object that has been a part of more than half of his lifetime.
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Haq left his two daughters, his wife and his mother back in Bangladesh in order to find better working opportunity to provide for his family. “Housing is expensive,” he answered when the question of why he did not bring his family along with him was asked. The tailor’s attention did not break away once from cutting the material in front of him as he replied. Although not being able to see his family as often saddened him, Haq was grateful that he was able to return to his country every year for three months and visit them.

Tailoring has always been Haq’s profession. Haq started to work as a tailor as soon as he finished his fourth grade of elementary school. He has not been able to obtain further education for himself since then.

In Doha, Haq works everyday and sends most of his profit back home to his family. This time of the year is an even busier time for Haq as schools in Doha recently commenced their new academic year and demands for tailored uniforms for students are at its peak.

Similar to many occupations, tailoring has its challenges. Getting the model of the finished work to the way the customer desires is the challenge for tailors. “It’s a difficult work. Something wrong with the model, it’ll be hard,” Haq explained in the broken English he had acquired since he first started living in Doha.

The tailor working in the same shop as Haq has been in Doha for more than twenty years, similar to Haq.
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Haq did not work alone. Along with him, another Bangladesh tailor worked in silence, the hammering sound of the sewing machine in front of him spoke enough of his daily life. A few meters across Haq’s workplace stood a material store owned by an Iranian merchant. The son of the owner named Yaqub Muhammad had known Haq for six years and the two had helped each other out with business. His store that was filled with colorful clothing materials contrasted greatly from Haq’s workplace that was dominated by shelves of blue plastic bags containing many tailored clothes, the results of his daily hard work. “Sometimes when customers come here, I tell them to go across for a tailor,” Muhammad explained how he establishes his business relation with Haq.  “The workers are very close with one another,” said the 25-years.

As he had been in Doha for a long period of time, Haq noticed some changes in the region over the years. Haq remembered that during the first few years he had been in Doha, the Souq would close at sunset, as people would tend to sleep earlier. Now, thanks to a busier lifestyle due to technology development, people would stay up later and his working hours are extended to fit the needs of an increasingly busy and awake society. The tailor  was not bothered by this change as longer hours filled his time and helped him earn more profit.

“I didn’t even feel like time passes by,” said Haq, recalling the 27 years he had spent in Doha.

Haq is very dedicated to his work, he barely looked up from what he was working on during the interview.
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Sewing had been Haq’s daily routine for many, many years.
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Eid Mubarak!

To all my fellow Muslim readers out there, I hope you have a blessed and festive Eid filled with food, family and friends! Eid Mubarak!

 Here's a sneak peek on how I spent my Eid morning:

Indonesian chicken satay!

A typical Indonesian family gathering

Strawberry pie anyone?

The i-Pad nation

My Favorite TV Show of All Time...

So this post was basically inspired from browsing Ross McCall's Twitter account at 5 a.m this morning (don't even ask why I was up at bloody 5 a.m.) If you guys don't know him, he's probably most recently known for playing Matthew Keller in White Collar but if you know him from any other movies/shows, well, that's awesome then. Anyway, he posted up some pictures of the older productions he was involved in. Most of the pictures, however, were of scenes from this miniseries called Band of Brothers which aired in 2001 and lasted for 10 episodes only.

And let me tell you something, Band of Brothers...

...is my favorite TV-show. Of all time.

And I think I can justify that by saying I've watched the whole thing over and over again five times already since I first discovered the mini-series (which was a year and a half ago) and I also watched  some episodes more than others.

The mini-series Band of Brothers is the film adaptation of the book "Band of Brothers" written by Stephen E. Ambrose (and yes, I've read the book as well). It's mainly re-telling the experience of U.S Army's 101st Airbone Division, Easy Company during the WWII from D-Day to VE-day. Paratroopers, gunshots, explosions - basically war. Also the producers of the mini-series includes Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, just a little something to note on. Oh, and the show was aired on HBO.

Why do I like this mini-series so much? So I thought I'll list out reasons. Like top ten reasons kind of thing except the reasons I'm giving doesn't add up to ten and they are definitely not in order of preference. They're all equally important reasons to me. However, during my period of fanatism towards this show, I managed to convince a couple of my friends to watch this show and most of them loved it! So if any of you are reading this and if I somehow manage to convince you to check out the show (score!), I sincerely hope you do because this show is really worth watching, even if war-related films are not really your thing.

Anyway, here goes...

Reasons why Band of Brothers is my favorite show of all time:

1. Everyone who is someone has been in this show at one point. And I mean many, many notable stars has been involved in this mini-series. Although back in 2001, a lot of them are probably not as big of a major star as they are today (and many of them has pretty minor roles in the series actually), it really surprised me to see that many recognized actors were casted in this show. I'm talking about Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Donnie Wahlberg, Richard Speight Jr. and Matthew Settle among some of them. Heck, even David Schwimmer from FRIENDS was in it, and you don't expect him to play the whole soldier gung-ho role do you?

2. You can't deny excellent cinematography. I mean, you really can't. The color schemes, camera angles and special effects throughout the series just worked well with each other to give a, what I can describe as a "past-but-present" atmosphere. You know what you're watching is something that happened in the past but it's happening right in front of your eyes. The constant slightly yellow hue of the images during the fight and action scenes and the blue tint during winter hardships or moments of relief and loss does give a direction towards the mood the scene was meant to depict.

3. Captivating storyline. Great story pace. When one thinks of war, one immediately thinks of bloodbath. I will say that there are quite a bit of blood shed on this show. But it's a show about war, what do you expect? However, I will say that the portrayal of the wounds and the maimed are just that, the wounded and the maimed. Or rather the storyline makes these blood-loss an important part of the plot instead of excessive and unnecessary blood-loss (I hate excessively gory scenes in films.) Also, what the book and the show predominantly tells us about war is that, when it comes to life and death, the true nature of every individual shows up.
     Yes there are people getting stabbed, shot and blown to pieces but I think the real story is also about the mental struggles of the soldiers. How one is forced to objectify people of the opposition as "the enemy" and not a human being anymore on the battlefield. Compassion and brotherly bond is highly appreciated during the period of the battle. Competence is highly important, one can easily see who is a natural leader and who got the position through connections. The beauty of war is that all the men are stripped off their social facade among their comrades and they are able to be themselves, because deep in the recesses  of their mind is the constant question of "will I survive today?" and when you never know whether today is your last day, denying oneself of one's true nature is a waste of time.
    I can go on about the whole "beyond the bloodbath" thing that I get from the mini-series but this will take a whole essay so I'll pipe down about it now. Story pace is quick, immediate and catches your attention pretty well...once you get through the first episode. I'll admit, the first episode of the series takes quite a bit to get through because I had to get used to the army lingo and knowing who is who (though it's quite an important episode!) but once you hit episode two, you'll keep on wanting to watch the next episodes.

4. Damian Lewis/Major Richard Winters. I think one of the main protagonist of the mini-series deserves a mention as to why the show is such an excellent show. Of course, there are so many characters in the show that made me fall in love with the mini-series big time and if I could, I would comment on every one of them and ramble on why they're amazing as hell but for the sake of things, I'll choose Richard Winters. Now, the mini-series was based on a biographical book so the book was predominantly factual. Richard Winters was told, from many accounts of the veterans who had been in the war with him, to be some sort of impossibly saintly soldier. He's highly competent, he doesn't drink, he refrains from swearing and he's very considerate of his subordinate. I thought someone like him would never exist, especially in the zone of war, but then there are those rare exceptions I suppose. All I can say is that from the book and the mini-series, Richard Winters was quite an enigma and I think Damian Lewis, the actor who presents Richard Winters, pulled him off perfectly. Just a fun-fact, Damian Lewis is British but he pulls off pretty good American roles.

Damian Lewis as Richard Winters

5. There's only ten episodes. So a major factor why this show is such a huge success with me is probably because it has only ten episodes. Granted, each episode is an hour long but I'm actually pretty bad at keeping up with TV-series with plenty of seasons and episodes so the fact that this mini-series has only one season and ten episodes made it a whole lot easier for me to keep up and remember each episode in details. And ten episodes but towards the end, it felt finalized. It didn't feel as if it was cut short of anything. The last episode of this mini-series broke my heart beautifully.

6. Beautiful opening segment and the show wins over The Pacific in terms of realism (in my opinion). So this is the opening segment for Band of Brothers. Very beautiful, very majestic theme song. Although I sort of find the song for the opening of its fellow war mini-series The Pacific more appealing (and I may just be Hans Zimmer biased when I say this, but I really find the song a lot more captivating.)

So, a little about The Pacific. The Pacific is basically a WWII mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and also featured on HBO but it shows the war at the pacific end of the globe whereas Band of Brothers tells us of the battle in Europe. It first aired in 2010 so it's more recent. I personally think The Pacific wins in terms of theatrics and drama within the story but in terms or realism and rawness of war, Band of Brothers definitely wins and I think this is why Band of Brothers is better, because the series felt a lot more realistic.

7. Brief interviews of actual veterans inserted at the beginning and end of each episodes makes the mini-series a mix of a TV-show and a documentary/biographical style kind of series. Also some powerful quotes said by the real life veterans:

Richard Winters: (quoting Mike Ranney) I treasure my remark to my grandson who asked, "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" Grandpa said, "No... but I served in a company of heroes". 

Carwoon Lipton: Henry the fifth was talking to his men and he said from this day to the ending of the world we and it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers, for he who sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother. 

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There you have it folks! All opinions are mine and I don't claim I represent everyone who has watched the show, they could think of this show differently but this is how I see the show. I could write a whole lot more but for the sake of space, I'm getting these few important points out.

So thank you for those who bothered to read this post and if I somehow manage to perk your interest towards this show, do check it out! 

[For fun] Playlist: About A Girl

So sometimes I like to do these kind of things. Bear with me.
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Artwork by Tzviatko Kinchev

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When they say a picture is worth a thousand words, they have a point. Paintings and images can tell a story through the emotion they wordlessly express and the colors they bathe in. Art resonates differently with every individual.  

The artwork above, to me, brings out the colors of emotions. Although the expression pictured is one of melancholy, the rainbow of colors gives off so many more than just sadness. I see beauty, love, tragedy, remembrance, patience, heartbreak, hope and plain romance all tied with with the evident melancholy. And when I feel, I think of songs. Hence, I decided to come up with a tiny playlist of songs that I think resonates most with the artwork above.

Beauty, love, passion, tragedy and heartbreak will always intertwine somehow. Also as women, we are never completely free of emotions in every aspect of life we come across. Something wonderful can turn into a tragedy but there will be a day when everything will feel wonderful once more. One should not lose hope.

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Playlist:
01. Black Lab - Circus Lights (here)
02. Jason Mraz - A Beautiful Mess (here)
03. Cinema Paradiso - Love Theme (here)
04. John Williams & Itzhak Perlman - Schindler’s List Theme (here)
05. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes (here)
06. Beth Orton - Ooh Child (here)
07. Barcelona - Come Back When You Can (here)
08. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly (here)
09. Blue October - 18th Floor Balcony (here)
10. Kiss - Because I’m A Girl (here)/ Korean version (here)

Musings: Summer Epiphany

So I guess it's been a while since I've updated my blog (although I doubt anyone took notice and I'm probably talking to myself right now but to that one or two possible reader/s, hey there!)

I haven't been writing as much because I've been pre-occupied with a few things and right now I'm trying to come in terms with staying at a pretty empty Doha for a whole month. It's not so bad since it's Ramadan and during Ramadan, all I really want to do during the day is stay at home and vegetate 'til Iftar anyway.

(Also to those of you celebrating the Holy Month of Ramadan, Ramadan Kareem!)

Anyway, today's post was inspired by an article I happen to read on a friend's Facebook profile. It's titled "Frenzy for foreign title misses local talent" and was posted on Shanghai Daily. Basically, the article explains how there are several cases in China in which people with notable positions in their career field forged their higher education diplomas into a 'western' institution diploma in order to make themselves more 'qualified.' 

While I was reading that, I felt a slight pity to those people who are naturally brilliant who feels the need to camouflage themselves behind a 'western' name in order to be recognized. It's even more sad that in regions like China and similar Asian regions (speaking from personal experience), there is evidently a 'favoritism' towards those who has more of a foreign or western touch. I remember watching an Indonesian news segment a long time ago on the country's pilots and they revealed that foreign pilots working for a local airline are generally paid so much more than the local pilots, with the same position working for the same airline.

With that said, I'll admit, I used to have a foreign bias. This bias was sadly from my lack of knowledge for my own region. Patriotism was never a big thing for me on account that I spent more than half of my life growing up outside Indonesia. And when a lot of things I read on the news was about all the corruption that occurs in the region, it's pretty hard for me to grow some pride for the country and I came to a conclusion that if I earn a foreign education and work outside Indonesia, I'll have more opportunities coming my way. In some ways it's true because by getting an international qualification, my options are not limited to just Indonesia.

But here's something a conclusion I came to eventually: don't view an evidently 'better' opportunity as a chance to dismiss other options that you can take because the end results can be the same. Those 'other' options are just paths less traveled.

This summer, I get to visit Indonesia completely on my own. Going on my own meant having my own plans and no family events that I have to indulge myself in. So for the first time ever I really traveled around Jakarta and Bandung with people and really get the feel of living as an 'Indonesian' instead of a 'visitor.' For the first time, I took the commuter train and the busway. I get to feel how it is to be a citizen there all the time and how tiring it is to get from one place to one another because of the heavy traffic. I went to regions I haven't been to. I traveled. And despite the difficulty of getting to places, I loved every moment of it. Because it was more than sight-seeing for me. It was a chance to be able to get in touch with Indonesia and see for myself that there are so many things to love about the country behind the corruptions and whatnot. Patriotism: Revived.

This year I also visited a couple of the national universities and I came to a conclusion that the people who studies there are no less qualified and capable than those with international qualifications. By visiting these institutions, I saw for myself how loaded with talents the youth of Indonesia are. I never doubted that they are, but this year, their extent of talent amazes me. And just because they don't have an international qualification doesn't mean they are less competent than those with one. It comes to how the person handles his or herself. I, now,  also find myself thinking how pretty proud I would be of myself if I got accepted into one of the top national universities because it's a tough fight amongst the youth of Indonesia and if I got in then I know I got what it takes. I admire my friends who studied outside Indonesia and got accepted in one of the best universities of the region. (Congratulations guys, make the country proud!)

So from my summer experience, I have a new level of appreciation towards the locals of Indonesia and the culture of Indonesia. And some of the people are really capable of a lot without a 'foreign' education. I'm not saying one doesn't need to study anything from a foreign region, it really doesn't hurt to broaden one's horizon. But segregating and automatically labelling a person as 'better' because they've scratched the tip of another iceberg different from theirs is highly superficial. A person should be judged professionally from what they can do, what experiences they've collected in their lifetimes and their personal progress achievements rather than a name and a place. It's tough, but it's fair. Just because it's not 'western' doesn't mean it's not golden.

 

Musings: On The Subject of 'Home'

So last month, I stumbled onto a video that had really hit close to home (no pun intended!)

And because I'm sort of a noob on blogspot and the video was uploaded on Vimeo, I'm not sure whether you're able to embed Vimeo videos here. So for visual aid's sake, you can view the video here.

Basically, the creator of the video focused around 'third-culture kids.' What are third culture kids? Those are kids who have spent a significant portion of their lives away from their country of origin and at times, this can lead to a confusion to their sense of identity. Not biographically, but a confusion to which country they feel they resonate to most, which culture they feel more comfortable to, which language they speak more fluently and so on. These kids have a difficulty in answering where home is to them because home to them is not where they are born or their supposed nationality. Home is, and pardon the cheesiness, what their hearts resonate to most. This could be anything- culture, food, place and so on. If they live abroad but their patriotic sense is strong, then they would claim their home country 'home' for the rest of their lives. Anything can be considered as a reason to make something as 'home.'

Here's the thing: I'm a third culture kid. I was not surprised to find that I know exactly how the kids in the video felt.

Something I always remember during my younger years is this: I moved a lot. Even within Indonesia itself, I remember constantly commuting between two cities until my family decided to put up a third into the count. I've lived outside Indonesia ever since the beginning of third grade and I've lived in three different regions of the Middle East until now. Most significant thing about my move is that right now, I've had a total of 9 different schools that I've been enrolled to.

Of course, everything has its ups and down. I grew up in a constantly changing environment. Because I moved a lot, I adapt to things pretty easily because like it or not, I was always forced to do so. Right now, culture shock is not an issue for me anymore because I've been made more open-minded and more easy in accepting differences because of how I grew up. I've kept "don't judge a book by its cover" close to heart because I truly know what it means. When you move a lot and you're new to things, the best way to learn your surroundings is to be objective and then form your own opinions after you understand them well rather than narrowing your view when you barely scratched the surface of things.

The downside of moving so much? Being the new kid constantly. And overtime, you find yourself as "the foreigner" in the country you currently live in and your home country. In all honesty, I feel like a foreigner whenever I visit Indonesia. Although I have the passport, the birth certificate and the physical appearance of one, I feel as if I'm not truly Indonesian. After spending so much years abroad, I have difficulty in speaking the language and I have this sort of funny accent whenever I speak and I speak really stiff whenever I try to talk in Bahasa (which is why I sort of try and refrain from speaking in Bahasa as much as possible.) There is so much about the region that I don't know as well. All in all, I sympathize more with those tourists visiting Indonesia than Indonesians themselves. And this sort of sucks because I'm also a foreigner in the country I'm staying in currently and I find that because in one place, I'm obviously a foreigner while in the other, I feel like a foreigner from the inside that I don't have one place I can identify myself with.

It might sound sort of horrible but I like to consider myself as unattached to a country. Although I always introduce myself as Indonesian and claim that I'm one (and will always do in the future,) I will admit that I don't believe in it entirely. I do so mostly because I've been programmed to do that since forever and also for the fact that it makes sense to people. I can't introduce myself as an Arab despite the fact that I've lived in Middle East most of my life because as far as culture, language and appearance goes, I am far from being one. I can't introduce myself as some other nationality either because I have no other solid evidence to support that claim. Hence, I'm an Indonesian. But I'm not entirely. I am a collection of all the places I've lived in previously and that's what I've become. That's what I'm able to present to you right now.

So coming back to the title of the post because I feel that I've digressed majorly; if I was asked where my home is, what would have I replied with? Well, to me, home is not a specific place anymore. This year, I've travelled to Morocco, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia without my parents or my family with me. And after some musings and thoughts from all the travelling I've done, I can conclude that I can quickly make a home out of any place. But there's something that will make a place feel like 'home' to me. That something is this:

People. People who are my family. People who I can have fun with. People who will support me and understand me whenever I'm going through tough times or whenever I'm in my weird moody state. People who I can have conversations with. People who I can offer my support to.

If any of these people are present, I can stand living in any place. As long as there are people who I can count on, I can make myself believe that the place I am in currently is my home because when you think about it, any region on this earth has its ups and downs, like many other things. To me, as long as there are people who I can convince myself to stay for, I can consider that place my home.

Of course, those pictures above are only of just some people who I consider significant in my life. There are many many more, many that have taught me valuable lessons about life and many who helped me learn about myself better. There are also many who I just like being there for as well as many who made my home much more of a home to me.

If you actually know me, you'll realize I'm not the most social person. I try to be nice to everyone but I'm only truly open about myself to only a handful of people in reality. I don't know why, but I guess I'd rather have a few people who I know I can establish a solid bond with for a long time rather than knowing so many but they only come and go. With that said, I don't hate meeting people. I like making acquaintances but I find that I'm selective whenever I have to be really open about myself. That's why, those people who have become quite significant to me, will always be significant no matter what.

So my answer to the question of where's my home: I don't have a specific home. Any place can be my home so long as I'm sharing it with people who can make these places a home for me. Because as the good ol' saying "home is where the heart is" and yes, I shall be sappy and end the post by saying home to me, is the place where the people I left a part of my heart with is.

Singapore part 2: What happened in Sentosa...well here it is!

So this is part 2 to my post on the Singapore experience. I thought this post will be mostly picture concentrated because, as the cliche good ol' saying: A picture's worth a thousand words! Though to be honest, the pictures I chose for this post does not justify the actual thing. I wanted to put up more pictures but this is a blog post and not my Facebook album so I just want to get the essentials out. With pictures.

Anyway, this post will highlight some of the things I did in Sentosa island which was the fun-hub located on the southern region of Singapore.

Again, there were so much more happening than what's being posted but some are better left of as good ol' memory. Also, not all the pictures were taken by me, some were taken by my friends (I just don't like getting credits for something I haven't done.)

Here's Sentosa!
(click on the images to see a larger version of the image)
(also the photos are not structured in chronological order at some point)

The Jewel Box, apparently an iconic hilltop destination of Singapore, as written...
p.s iconic also translates to popular. Do not go here during weekends if you can avoid it.

Located on Mount Fabre, and it's cable car is one of the ways in which you can get to Sentosa Island.

Cable car!

A view of Singapore from the cable car

Scorpion, one of the collections of Sentosa's Island ...

Insect Kingdom Museum. Enough said!

Gigantic crab-looking arthropod in Sentosa Island's aquarium 

More view of the aquarium! There was also a dolphin show which unfortunately I didn't get to watch :(

Of course, the famous Universal globe of Singapore's Universal Studio! 

Songs of The Sea, a pretty awesome light/water/fire musical show of sorts in Sentosa...

This is one of the rides within Universal Studio. A gigantic roller coaster.
Tip: For extra thrill, make sure you go on the blue one and not the red one. I guarantee you won't be sorry. Or maybe you will. Well, whatever. Just make sure you go on the blue one!

The grand finale of Songs of The Sea

A generic kind of view of Universal Studio

A pretty awesome watershow, bringing the  movie Waterworld to reality!

Music is a must! Daddy-o's is one of the performers that will entertain you prior to USS's closing time

Best ride ever. If you ever dream of seeing Optimus Prime  or Bumblebee in reality, this ride will bring you pretty close to that dream. This one's a must!!

iFly, a pretty awesome skydiving simulation in Sentosa Island. It costs quite a bit but it's so worth it!
(Advice: Unfortunately if you had a dislocated shoulder previously, you won't be able to do this :( )