The bad news was delivered by boyfriend via phone call on yesterday. Three words of ‘CK passed away’ was more than enough to make me felt shocked, hand trembled, and almost dropped tears, that I don’t know how boyfriend and CK’s family friends can handle this news. It is just too sudden. He is 24 years old or so only, healthy and no chronic illness. When I knew that it happened in this way – he slept and never woke up from the sleep – how I wish that there will be a miracle, that he could wake up from the comma and there will be happy ending.

Until today, memories of late CK still plays in my head. He is one of my favorite persons among boyfriend’s friends, because he spoke slowly (and yet steady) which made me managed to catch and understand the conversation between him and boyfriend, and he used mandarin most of the time. That was during the early days when my listening of FooChow wasn’t that good yet.

I remembered I had my hair cut by him back in 2005, when he still worked as a hairstylist in KL before he moved to Singapore. On mid year 2005, we celebrated the dumpling festival together. In the above picture – left hand side, he was wrapping the dumpling together with another friend (Mow).

On the same day, we celebrated the birthday of Mow – boyfriend’s close friend. In the above picture, Mow the birthday boy holding the cake, Mow’s girlfriend (now wife), CK, boyfriend and I. The below picture, when the boys trying to act cute.

The last time I saw him was almost 3 years ago. Boyfriend and I stayed at his place when we had to go to Singapore for few days, cause my student visa was about to expired and my leg was in bad condition due to the hot water incident. If it wasn’t him who offered us a place to stay, we would be homeless in Singapore I guess. Economy was bad for us the fresh-grads back then.

It is quite hard to believe that he is gone now, for forever. May he rest in peace.

P.S. During some period of LDR and when boyfriend fell sick, he would said how nobody will know his condition if the illness went worse and bad thing happens blablabla. *touch woods* His worry does make sense, cause boyfriend’s family and I stayed thousand miles away from him. While he stayed with the landlord and girlfriend (both 20sth yo) who hardly stayed in the house, that’s all. Before that, there was an ignorant housemate which didn’t help at all.

I feel that this somehow ties with the bad news of boyfriend’s friend. I mean, working overseas and staying alone without a good housemates or friends (in the same house or apartment) is a big no no. And, staying with family is the best. Aihz, somehow emo mode on. Sigh.

Second, I have a short fringe now. Just cut it at the saloon nearby my house this morning, along with wash and blow hair (IDR.60.000), and bought the Kerastase vitamin for curly hair (IDR260.000). I extremely miss my long fringe! The fringe looks kinda short now. Hope that it will be neither too short nor too long for the BIG day, which is like 4 weeks away from now.

I bought the webcam during the one week trip to KL on August, at LowYat Plaza the IT paradise in Bukit Bintang. So many choices to go for, from branded webcam like Microsoft to made-in-China brand. Live demo was available and staffs were pretty helpful.

Unlike the IT shop in Medan, especially in shopping complex, always hire young women who knows nothing about computer stuffs and only know how to keep an eye on the shop. I’m not asking the shop owner to hire a geeky worker, but someone who has some knowledge about IT and computer will do.

Anyway, the webcam was bought at RM39.90, slightly cheaper than the lousy Genius Eye 110 which I bought last year at IDR.165.000 (around RM60). It has LED lights that can be adjusted and built-in microphone but I haven’t figure out how to make it works.

See above picture, the quality of this webcam is so much better than the lousy Genius Eye 110. LED light was turn on and no photoshop effect is used in the picture.

The webcam also have special effect such as windy, ripple, blablabla and frames. It’s me and my brother in the picture.

There is this one effect called monitor, with 9 frames. Each frame will be updated in few seconds. I have to change pose real fast so that I can have 9 different poses. I also need to be fast enough to click the capture button after the 9th frame and before it goes back to the 1st frame. Pfiuh.

Bottom line, this has to be one of the best buying I ever made this year.

Obstacles:
1. Different nationality. I am Indonesian and boyfriend is Malaysian.
2. Different religion. I was a Buddhist and boyfriend is a Christian. It was stated clearly in the documents, my IC, etc, we cannot lie to the officer.
3. Malaysia allows marriage between Buddhist-Christian, but Indonesian doesn’t allow that.

Process of getting marriage certificate:
1. Through the process, we found out that inter-religion marriage is not allowed in Indonesia. We did try to register in Malaysia first, but Indonesia Consulate insisted of not giving me the necessary statement letter hence we couldn’t move on to the next step.

2. Either one of us has to convert religion legally. Since I grow up with the mindset that a woman should follow her husband, I decided to change my religion on the paper, from my IC (Identity Card) to other documents.

3. But that is not as easy as telling the officer that I already a Christian and voila, they make changes on my IC. I have to show a proof or statement from the church. To get that statement, I have to go through the baptist path.

4. Baptist to me, is a very important thing. I could be a Buddhist who practice KongHuCu at the same time, but I never been ‘baptized in the temple’ (I don’t know what is the correct word in Buddhism) cause I’m not ready yet. After much consideration, I go for baptist path since it is the only way out. *appreciate if you not judging me and my decision*

5. Now, I am basically waiting for the baptism paper so that I can have my IC and other necessary documents changed.

6. Problem doesn’t stop here. Yesterday, I went to civil office (read: catatan sipil) only to find out that : to file the marriage in Indonesia, we need to have a marriage certificate from church or temple – depends on one’s religion. On another side, Malaysia doesn’t have that requirement – you can register your marriage in the civil office without the need to marry in church/temple first.

7. Next problem: to have our wedding done in a church, we need to have our baptist paper and need to be a member of the church. So, I am waiting for my baptist paper but boyfriend doesn’t have one. He, who has been staying in KL for more than 6 years, is not a member of any churches in his hometown too.

8. We have thought of the solution and will have an extremely simple kind of wedding church in Medan. But everything is yet to be confirmed. Hopefully it will go well.

9. Through the process in boyfriend’s hometown few weeks ago, we found someone who claimed to be capable of obtaining the marriage certificate in both countries – Malaysia and Indonesia, at the fee of RM10,000. Boyfriend and I were so frustrated and tired with the process already, it did come across our mind to just throw that sum of money and have everything settle by that person, so that we can focus on our work. But, our parents woke us up that it is better to settle it ourselves, although it takes time. Oh well, it’s RM10,000 and not RM1,000. Forget it.

I just have one thing to rant. Bear in mind, this rant comes from someone who has a very little knowledge about Christian and church related stuff. You see, I can somewhat understand the must-have-baptist-paper part, but I can’t understand why someone have to be a member of a church first then only can have a wedding church there? It sounds silly and unfair. Much like: you can’t enter the VIP lounge in the airport because you don’t have member card.

IMHO, Church is just a media of the religion – Christian. We don’t suppose to belong to a particular church but the religion. I know Christian is divided into a few – Methodist, Protestant, Catholic, Charismatic, and many more. I can accept it if the reason is because they don’t want a Protestant to marry in a Catholic church, for example. But it is super ridiculous if they don’t allow a Protestant to marry in a Protestant church just because he/she is not a member of the church!

Be in my shoes to understand where does all this frustrations come from.

Put aside all those frustrations and troubles, cause I just knew a super good news! Since last year (if I not mistaken), Indonesians can link our Paypal account and our local Bank accounts, which means we can withdraw the money directly into our Bank accounts. While Malaysia didn’t have that feature yet. They need to transfer into credit card or debit card of particular Banks.

But not anymore! Cause Paypal has add in the new feature : Withdraw funds from Malaysia PayPal account to your local bank account. Withdrawal for more than RM400 is FREE of charge! There goes the time of withdrawing to credit/debit card, being charged RM5 for every withdrawal, and USD500 as maximum withdrawal amount per day. Hooray for the improvement! As if they know that I will be migrating to Malaysia soon that they make the withdrawal process easier.

I have flew to his hometown 3 times if I not mistaken (end of 2004, early 2006, and end of 2007), excluded the latest trip. There used to be 6 dogs in the house. Those who know me well, will understand how scare I am with dogs and cats! The first visit to his house was not easy at all. They barked at me all the time. I made a distance with them. For second and third visit, they still barked for few days until they get use to my attendance I guess.

Surprisingly on the latest visit, they no longer barked at me. *hooray* Okay, maybe once, when we just arrived from the airport. It gives me a special warm feeling. You see, they usually bark at strangers. So when they stop doing that to me, I feel so welcome and that they have started to take me as part of the family.

Out of the 8 dogs, she is my favorite one – can be count as newcomer in the house too. She was named San Se Nai Cha cause future MIL said the fur consists of 3 colors. Well, the rationale behind the name does make sense rather than naming her as Kettlebells – just because the dog is that heavy.

She looks cute but always run away whenever we try to approach her. A few times boyfriend managed to ‘catch’ her and she would pause from making any movement until we released her. Hopefully as time goes, she can be closer to us.

But somehow, starting from August, my frequency of posting has gone down the hill. Not even 10 entries per month. Ah, laziness strikes in. I could also give the classic reason ‘Because my life is so dull, I have nothing to blog about.’ or ‘I am so busy with my wedding preparation, my freelance work, and my own life that I have no time to post and edit pictures.’ But aih, I’m not that cliché one okay?

Anyway, don’t care about the posting frequency, cause I have other more important thing that needs my attention. Marriage certificate, what else? Duh. All those fancy huge fabulous wedding reception will mean nothing if the certificate is not done yet. Aih, just wish me luck!

Anyway, I remember when boyfriend came to Medan a few months ago. We would go to a kopitiam nearby my house during tea time. There was once, we brought along a notebook and a pen. We talked about our freelance work, USD, and I also mentioned “To compare term life insurance rates go here” to boyfriend.

Out of a sudden, the auntie – who is the owner of the kopitiam – came to us and asked the following question in a very exciting and curious mode:

What MLM business are you guys talking about?

Boyfriend looked at me, I looked at him back and we both gave a puzzle look to the auntie. We quickly cleared the situation and told her that we were talking about our work, and not some MLM business with huge earning in USD. When she walked away, we couldn’t help but to giggle over her question.

Oh well, we can’t blame her for popping that question. I mean, when I see two young adults sitting in a coffee shop at 4pm, doodling on a book while discussing some stuffs and some amount of money in USD, the possibility that comes across my mind would be: they are doing MLM business or salesman.

One afternoon in Puchong.

On another side, I do miss my hometown very much! Homesick, somewhat. It’s been a while since I have this feeling. The last time was when I still studying in college. Thinking that I will leave the town in less than 2 months time just make this missing feeling gets stronger. I gotta appreciate my life in Medan for the next 5 – 6 weeks.

For the past 2 weeks, boyfriend and I have been working from this coffee table in his living room. We read blogs, work on web design, research on acne treatment, all those done from our temporary working space. He is using his own Acer laptop while I hijack his white Macbook. He sits on the huge chair while I sit on the small chair. We developed backache because of the sitting position.

Not the best working environment. But hey, beggar can’t be chooser. We are going to bear with this until tomorrow (we are going back KL tomorrow). Will need to wait until we settle down on December if we want to have a decent working space or so called home office.

Here is what I wished to achieve for year 2009 (I wrote this on 2008) :

1 year later (read: 2009)

- I will be in Singapore with the boyfriend. Had a minimalist princess room with Ikea furniture. I’ll separate half for the prince room.

- I will be working at a medium size advertising agency or design studio in Singapore. Maintaining blogs at the same time and probably checking on EcoQuest International profile online.

- Good bye LDR.

- I will have a Sony Ericsson phone with mp3, camera, and most importantly able to online. No more flip phone is fine.

- I will own a 19? iMac. Save place than owning a 19? desktop.

- Still black hair with a shoulder length. Or maybe a curly one.

The fact is:

- I still stay with my family in my hometown, Medan, and fly to KL once in two months or so. The dream of working in Singapore, as a way to end LDR, has vanished.

- I stepped into web design world, work as a freelancer at home, and never look back. As the result, I developed dark eye circles due to long hour work sometimes, but income is pretty sweet and I have my time in my hands.

- Still in LDR. Good news, we will tie the knot end of this year. Can’t wait to say goodbye to LDR!

- My love towards pink stuffs continues. I am a proud owner of pink LG Ice Cream KF350. The best mobile phone I ever bought. Too bad it doesn’t have wifi thing.

- Still using Dell desktop. No longer have interest in the fragile Mac.

- Still black hair. But it’s curly instead of straight hair. No more bob style as I’ve started to grow it.

What-I-achieve-now is totally different from what-I-wanted-to-achieve-back-then. Well, no regret so far. I’m glad to be who I am today and have what I have today.