Travels.

You may or may not know that I've been traveling to the East Coast during the past two weeks. There are stories after stories I could spill to you all, but since I'm about to head off to my bus for Boston, I'm coerced to keep this post short --making it an update, perhaps.

Anyway, here's a repost of Ika Natassa's (one of my favorite Indonesian author whom I had the privilege to work freelance for) thoughts on traveling.

Stories, I promise. But for now, enjoy!

Travel is the simple chance of reinventing ourselves at new places where we are nobody but a stranger.

Travel is the discovery of what and who we miss the most.

Travel is the same pair of jeans for a week and different experiences every day.

Travel is finding new things and new people to miss.

Travel is discovering the part of yourself that you never knew existed before.

Travel is that one song in your iPod that will forever remind you of that one sexy afternoon somewhere.

Travel is the discovery of who misses us the most.

Travel is answering the question ‘business or pleasure’ without blinking.

Travel is deciding who will be the last call before you take off and the first call after you landed.

Travel is a test of your physical and emotional tolerance.

Travel is a one hour conversation that could lead to a lifelong friendship.

Travel is that one boarding pass you keep in your wallet to remind yourself one day when you’re gray and old that you were once cool.

Travel is waking up in a strange bed and feeling home and waking up in your own bed one day and feeling like a stranger.

It’s learning not to take every second for granted.

Travel is learning that the journey is as memorable as the destination.

Travel is discovering that random act of kindness does exist.

Travel is learning to communicate with just a smile.

Travel is not wanting to sleep because for once reality is more interesting than your dream.

Travel is not being afraid to fall in love with a complete stranger.

Travel is where broken English is welcomed with a wide smile instead of greeted by a grammar nazi.

Travel is where people that you talk to really try to understand what you’re trying to say.

Travel is finding out more reasons to write. And more reasons to live.

Travel, sometimes, is the rediscovery of our nationalism.

Travel is that one stranger across the street you will always wonder if he/she is your soul mate.

Travel is wearing those clothes you couldn’t wear back home.

Travel is realizing the things you cannot live without.

Travel is realizing that maybe you know nothing.

Travel is wearing a stranger’s jacket and feeling home.

Travel is meeting you.

P.S. Happy new year, my dear readers! It is yet another year to live, laugh, love, and cry. In that note, it's been over three years that I've blogged. How long have you blogged? Drop a word, I'd like to know.

Stories, I promise. But for now,

Falling Into Fall

I had the day off and had a chance to take a walk around my neighborhood with my baby Kenobi. The title of this post may not be completely appropriate because everything hasn't turned completely orange and brown yet. But it will have to do.

My fetish towards nail polish still persist

Imagine how I felt when I saw these flowers on my drive way when I walk out the door

Don't you just want to make leaf angels?

A little burst of red

My lovely and somewhat tilted neighborhood

The blurriness and the bokehs just makes this picture... perfect (in my amateur-photographical eyes)

The remnants of summer

I sent my college application this afternoon and I feel like a thousand ton of weight was lifted off my shoulders. But I did receive my quarterly progress report and I must say that I'm not particularly happy with one class' grade. An Asian F is simply unacceptable! Pffft.

On lighter note, I made my first Indonesian fried rice ever since I moved to my new house and it was a success! Even though it was lacking shallots and sweet soy sauce, it was regardless quite delicious. I was more than happy to have a little taste of home.

A little snack that've been chewed on repeatedly by my brain: Twitter is cool. Twitter is fun. Yes, it's a freedom of speech. Blah blah blah. But not everything that comes out of our mind is pure gold. Thus, we should filter what we're going to tweet multiple times before we hit that Tweet button.

I speak from personal experience that your tweet can bite you in the ass before you even have a chance to delete it. In other words, Google and think before you tweet. It's bad enough if you're tweeting stuff that nobody cares about, the least you can do is make sure that your grammar (punctuation, capitalization, word order, verb tenses, etc) is correct. That should leave you a little dignity ;-)

Have a great weekend!