Pieces of me in letters

My husband and I went out to lunch today, and he made me drive (by simply sitting on passenger’s seat and saying… it’s your car, so you drive). It was my first time to drive on highway here, and I was so very nervous. My heart was beating so fast (should I say… doki doki!) and then I realized that I had never been driving that fast… nearly 120 km/h! Waaaa!!!!! So anyways… we made it to the restaurant safely (thank God!) and my husband was just laughing when I told him my heart was still beating so fast even after we got there. He said I was doing well. Yay!! (^_^)v

We had very good seafood for lunch. Fresh oysters for appetizer (very yummy!), and I had grilled mahi with lemon caper sauce and sauteed zucchini on the side, while my husband had shrimps with rice and somekind of thick seafood stew (forget the name) on the side. After lunch, my husband made me drive again. But I told him I didn’t want to drive on highway. I had too much doki doki for one day. So we went home via regular streets and it was rather fun for me

Conclusion:
I think I am doing alright driving here. I got scared at times, but I suppose it’s only normal. Hopefully I can get over that completely and start driving around to go to different places by myself with much confidence. Soon, I hope! 

I didn’t realize that I hadn’t made any posting for more than a month. Oh well… I guess it just happens. Blog posting is not exactly one of the most important things you need to do in your life. But I do want to tell stories about my life. So here it is.

More adjustments in this new city. My husband bought me a car, and that’s great. I just wanted a decent small car. I was thinking of a small city car… like Honda Fit, Toyota Corolla or Yaris, VW Beetle and Mini Cooper. The last one is the most expensive, and I didn’t really expect that I would get that. I mean… I would be happy with just about any decent car. And as much as I like the idea of having a nice car, deep down I know that a nice car means heavier responsibility (eeewww…).

Then it just happened about a week ago. A metalic grey Mini Cooper on our driveway. So-called my car and I named it Kawaii (did you see that coming? :P). So far I’ve driven it twice. The first time was just fun. We went to a baby shower just a little outside the city, and on our way home my husband told me I should drive. And so I did drive a little, and it was fun… and weird… and scary… and exciting… all at the same time. I only have driver’s license from my home country, and at that time all I knew that I was doing something illegal: driving without local driver’s license. But then later on I found out that my current driver’s license is actually valid in this country for up to a year. And so I decided to get myself used to driving in this city. Today was my second time to drive Kawaii, and it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. Perhaps my expectation was too high to begin with, but anyways… I did learn a few things:

One:
Every wife probably knows this already (and I do too!): your husband is not exactly the best person to teach or assist you driving. He may be the best driver you know, but it’s better (for everybody!) to ask somebody else to teach and assist you driving. I knew my husband was just trying to give me directions and to make sure I was driving safely according to local laws, but to my ears, sometimes, he just yelled to drive me crazy!

Two:
In my home country, we drive on the left side of the road. I went to driving school there and was taught to do so. My driving teacher told me to always pay attention to what other drivers do on the road and to adjust my driving accordingly so not to hurt myself and other drivers. But apparently, it just doesn’t work that way here. I just have to make sure, at all times, that people - who my husband said mostly very ignorant - don’t hit me. It doesn’t matter even if I do the right thing according to the law. Eeeewww!!!

Three:
Drivers are alot more impatient and selfish here (although the driving guidance published by the government tells people to do the opposite). So I really need to be careful. I don’t want to hurt myself or other people. Don’t want to break my Kawaii either!

I really need to drive simply because publlic transportation is unreliable here. If it was better, I would opt to just use them and drive only occasionally. I thank my husband for the nice car, I hope I will be able to drive it more in a more relaxed atmosphere and actually enjoy it. Afterall… Mini Cooper is a fun car (so I’ve heard :P).

It’s December 31 2008, a little past noon. Year 2009 is coming in less than 12 hours!

I am in a pretty good mood now. The sun shines, clear blue sky… listening to Alicia Keys and thinking I want to just write something light on this posting, about my daily life as a housewife :)

I cook almost everyday and I can proudly say that my husband is the biggest fan of my cooking Having plenty of free time in my hands, I cook many different things, experimenting with new recipes or just trying to use the tips I got from that cooking channel I watch on TV. I baked dinner roll, and cinnamon rolls for breakfast (and no, I didn’t use that store-bought dough or cinnamon-rolls-in the-canister thing. It was all from flour, yeast, milk, butter, etc put together). Cooked different kinds of Indonesian food (my husband loved my springrolls and spicy shredded chicken with kaffir-lime leaf) and I recently invented my own asian-noodle-and-turkey-meatball-soup-with-Italian-twist. Got very good fresh Chinese noodle from Asian supermarket, very flavourful turkey broth and some left-over dinner rolls that I both made, and some ground turkey that just happened to be in the fridge… and voila! My husband had almost never eaten the same thing for dinner two nights in row, but he happily ate noodle-and-turkey-meatball for dinner two nights in a row And last night I made my first Indonesian beef curry ever, from all-fresh ingredients (except for the coconut milk, I used canned ones… made my life ALOT easier :P). The curry is called kalio, which is actually rendang but not as dry. It contains alot more thick sauce like regular curry. I cooked it for a couple of hours on the stove, then continue the cooking process in a slow cooker for about 5 hours. Also added mini potatoes (about quail-egg size) because my husband and I love potatoes. The result was amazing! The beef and potatoes held up their shape surprisingly well against the long cooking process, but were very very very tender. And the sauce was just great with white rice (probably good too with some rustic bread or pita bread too, I think). YUM-O! Both my husband and I had a second of the curry (couldn’t help it… it was just so yummy!). I guess now I have to admit that my husband was right when he said I made him fat (in a good way) :P 

I wish everybody a very happy new year! (^_^)

I should have made this posting earlier, but things had been so hectic that I couldn’t manage to sit down and write. I still have many things to do, but after taking a long walk today I feel that I should spend a little time writing about a significant step in my life that has just taken place for a little less than a week.

I met him a little over a year ago. It didn’t take too long for me to know that he was the missing piece of me that I had been searching for. We promised to be together for always. His home is now my new home. Thousands kilometers away from my family and friends. I started my new life here, in a land people often refer as land of dreams and opportunities, a few days ago. 

I have been spending about half of my time here alone… mostly trying to feel comfortable with my new home, my new life. “This is your home… our home”, he said. I could only nod with a little smile on my face. Deep down in my heart I knew it would take some time until I could honestly say to myself… “I am home”. This feeling of confuseness, loneliness, and somewhat isolated… is familiar to me. I felt it nine years ago, and I learned that the feeling would end… somehow, someday.

I usually don’t care much (and even just plain ignore) people when they ask me when I am going to have a child. Parents… friends… extended families… doesn’t matter. I just ignore them all. But for the first time in my life, today, that question somewhat bothered me.

I had a medical check up today and the doctor recommended me to have a certain vaccine. I said okay. Then the doctor asked me if I had plan to get pregnant in the next three months. I said no, I have no plan to get pregnant at least for a couple of years to come. The doctor looked at me, and said… “What are you waiting for? You’re (insert my age here). It’s time.”

Yes, that question bothered me because it was asked by a doctor… nothing personal. It was asked based on his knowledge about conditions needed for a healthy pregnancy.

From medical perspective, perhaps, I am not making the right decision… for myself and for my future child. Maybe it’s a trade off with having a child when I feel mentally ready thus feel completely happy about it. Parents who are happy about themselves make happy children (well… most of the times anyway). Not an easy trade off… so I guess I should think about this more carefully.  

Americans will vote for their next president in about 5 weeks. So far there have been one presidential debate and one vice presidential debate. I watched both. I am not going into who-won-the-debates topic, but I do want to say I had so much fun watching both debates. I think mostly because it was more like a brain storming process for me, and a chance for me to think about issues they brought up during the debates.

But speaking of fun… I have to admit that I had more fun watching Sarah Palin’s interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. I guess because I think I could see the real Sarah Palin better in such informal sets. For that, I must say Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric did a very good job. I wish such critical and honest interviews were done here in my home country too. Then we could all see the real politicians of this country. Are they really qualified? How are they going to solve important issues this country is now facing? Perhaps that way more people like me — the politic-skepticals — would be convinced to vote.

After four months in the dark, I finally can see some light… a sign that the first half of the journey has passed. The second half of the journey hopefully will be a smooth one. I can not wait for it to end. I know another long journey is waiting ahead, but at least I will not be alone because my partner will be with me to hold my hand the entire journey.

For the past two weeks I have been dealing with government bureaucracy pretty often. Something I honestly don’t like doing but in my current circumstances I really don’t have much choice.

Yesterday after I picked up my new passport at immigration office, I went to district level police department office to apply for police certificate. After completing a form, I went to a small room where they took finger prints. Not very long after I entered the room to wait for my turn, a man came in. He smiled and asked if I was going to have my finger prints taken for police certificate. I said yes. And then we started chatting, and I found out that he was a candidate for district level house of representative member from political party X.

While waiting for our certificates to be done, we continued chatting. I jokingly told him that should he won the nomination, he should check out local immigration office. I told him my experience when getting my new passport. How I saw the immigration officers openly received bribery from people so they could cut lines. How I wished bribery and corruption would disappear from this country. How I felt that in this country, being honest was almost like making fool of oneself because in an environment where bribery and corruption were so common, one would get so much trouble just for doing the right thing. Just like when I chose to do the right thing when getting my new passport done, what I got was interview day delay and hours of waiting for interview while watching people bribe the officers to cut line. He said it would take a change of generation in politics and bureaucracy to make a significant change. I told him I knew that. But a change must be started anyway, no matter how small and insignificant it might seem. I told him I knew very little about politics but I knew that if one was willing to make a change starting from him/herself and inspire other people to do the same, in the long run it would make much bigger effect. And that he, should he won the nomination, would be more able to inspire many people to do the right thing than say… somebody like me.

While chatting with him, I didn’t realize that another man was standing behind me and had been listening to our conversation, until he suddenly said he understood what I was talking about. He then asked me which political party I was from. He then introduced himself as also a candidate for district level house of representative from political party Y. I told him I belonged to no party. I am just a common citizen, a nobody. He said I was being too modest. I said I wasn’t being too modest. Like millions of people in this country, I am nobody compared to those politicians sitting or will-be sitting in the house of representatives. And I felt somewhat lucky that for once, I could talk to one of them to tell them my honest opinion as a nobody.

I now drive better, I think At least for two reasons:

Successfully drove from my sister’s place to home at night. Yes… my first time to drive at night, ever! And I didn’t hit anybody or anything

For the first time ever, I used 4th gear when I was driving from the market to home today. I know, I know…. it may not be a big deal to most people, but it is to me! I felt like I was driving really fast and all was good! Yaaayy~~ (^_^)v

Next challenge would be… driving to downtown. Good luck to me!

Family and friends are sources of support. They are the first people to go to when you need support, of any kind. I can’t agree more with that. But recently I found out that… sometimes… you can get the support you need from strangers, simply because they understand better what you are going through. Because they are going through the same thing you are.

I would like to thank two strangers… two very brave women out there… who have given me the support and consolation I need. I hope someday I can be of your support and consolation too.