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,

A Time To Kill, A Deal To Seal

Don't you just love it when you come up with a catchy and rhyming title for your post? :-)

I have about half an hour before I have to leave again so I decided to type this post up.

It's two weeks away from my Christmas getaway. It's crazy exciting but it also means that I have to finish ALL high school assignments before I leave and I have to finish ALL the final projects and papers for my college classes. Sounds fun? Umm... not really. But I brought this upon myself and each day, I remind myself to stay focused on the task ahead and not let myself slip into a hole.

Because Christmas is just around the corner, I'm going to spill my thoughts on the holiday itself. Yes, I celebrate Christmas but I'm not going to preach to you about what it means religiously or anything.

Christmas, to me, has always been simple.

It's about family and love. Growing up in Indonesia, we've never really made a big celebration of Christmas and I think, my family have only actually put up a tree thrice in the 15 years that I've lived at home. It's not that we don't appreciate Christmas. We just see Christmas as celebrating it with our family, without the fancy ornaments and gifts.

As you'd imagine, moving to the United States where EVERYTHING is about decorating and gifts and shopping for the occasion, I experienced quite a bit of a culture shock.

My first host family was your typical American family and they too celebrate Christmas like every other family in America does. We decorated the house, although the word 'decorate' wouldn't really represent the activity since we completely revamped the whole house with Christmas decorations. We had Christmas sheets, towels, plates, pillows, mats, and other household items that you can name. We also put up a huge Christmas tree and spent a whole evening decorating it.

...and then come the gifts.

I've always been taught to give and spending a sum of money for gifts have never been a drag for me. But it was so heartwarming to see a tree with boxes and boxes of beautifully (and Christmas-ly) wrapped presents under it. To be honest, I don't think I've ever received so much gifts from such few people in one day than I did during the two Christmas I was with the Edwards. The inner child that I am yelped in joy seeing that many presents and for a second (a loooooong second), I felt ungrateful because I wished I've celebrated Christmas this way all my life. By celebrating Christmas this way meaning the abundance of presents, of course. Such a selfish thought indeed.

But as I go through each day of my life in the past six months, I've been constantly reminded that I'm able to stand and breath because of grace and that Christmas is really about gifts. A gift, to be precise. It's important for me to remember that the best gift I could ever give to anybody is by loving them and to constantly remind them that they matter, and the best gift I could ever give to myself is to stay thankful no matter what.

I know that last paragraph is mega cheesy and mushy mushy. But as I listen and let my mind be swayed by Christmas songs that talk about nothing of the true meaning of the holiday, I can't help but to realize what I privileged life I've been living to be here, in tiny Twin Falls, Idaho with the wonderful classmates and friends that I have, and to having an amazing group of people just a BBM away in Indonesia and all over the world.

Sometimes, we forget that the little things we have matters. That the people we have around us matters. More than anything, we should be focusing on how we can make others feel loved and important during this month.

So if any of you readers is feeling exhausted or lonely or hateful during this most wonderful time of the year, remember to look around you and set your eyes away, for once, from yourself but to others. I guarantee that once you start worrying less about what you're going to get or what you're going to do or what's going to happen to you, the world will be much much brighter.

Because it always has been and it always will be.

So here's the deal I'm sealing with this post: Christmas was, is, and will always be about loving others.

"Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas."

Dale Evans