Pitter Patter on My Head

Our Mothership Earth

Rolling with the Punches

While 2020 is objectively very challenging for us all—with the giant curve ball it threw at us and smaller ones it kept pelting—I must say, it actually somehow turned out to be one of the best years of my recent life. There are three amazing milestones that I managed to surpass this year—one of them being a HUGE one—and I couldn't be prouder of it. Although I do this kind of recaps every year, this year it feels different somehow. It feels much more profound, a lot more low key and incredibly fulfilling. It may not seem like it to everyone else, but I feel really grateful for everything that's happened this year—on a small, personal scale and, to a degree, on a much grander scale. Yes, 2020 was a bitch. But it forced us to rethink the way we've been living life and, unfortunately, our old ways is no longer acceptable. As usual, there are things I thought would never change for me in 2019, but I was wrong. Everything changed—most importantly, my own mindset.

January

#NYE2019: A Tale of Two Palaces

It's mid January already, so I know it's high time we stop dwelling on the New Year. But, hey, I promise you the second part to our Cirebon trip and it is here! Unlike the usual way I serve a travel post—I know no one cares (lol)—where you'll get a chronological view of the trip, this time I thought I'd tweak it a little bit. These two destinations—one visited before the previous post and the other the next day—are so intricately connected, that I felt it would be best to tell you about them in one go. Aside from food, our main attractions from Cirebon are palaces. There are a total of 3 palaces in this town, as far as we know. Out of those three, we only managed to visit two, yet they have such rich history and are a complete contrast to one another. Are you intrigued?

#NYE2019: Tunnel Caves to Nowhere

Roots Growing into Warm Soil

At the beginning of 2019, I posted a recap of 2018 with the title The Wheel Starts Turning. There is a certain symbolism in that which reminds me of Narnia's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. My life in the past few years felt eerily similar to the eternal winter of The White Witch, and only recently—in 2018—did spring seem to arrive. I've never imagined that I would once again feel a sense of belonging in the faces of strangers—like I used to feel back in 2012 and 2013. I thought finding one's place is a luxury and indulgence of youth—something I believe I no longer have—but, somehow, my roots start to grow into this warm soil. Change is just part of everyday life these days, that I've got no choice but to embrace it. Some changes are easier to swallow than others, and this year is chock full of them. But, hey, this is my life, not a lack thereof; there's not much else to do, but to live it.

January

Exhibit B: Seek • A • Seek

Exhibit A: Perihal

Old Stones & New Experiences

Last week I went on my very first company outing—we went to Yogyakarta! It's been over 9 years since the last time I'd been there, so I'm excited to find out what the town looks like today. Unfortunately, as some of you who have experienced this will know, company outings have a set itinerary. At least for us the other day, the itinerary wasn't shared with everyone. To be honest, I hated that. I hate any situation in which I don't have a good sense of control. Not knowing exactly what we will be doing or where we will be going really sucks for me. Nevertheless, it was all quite fun and I enjoyed most parts of it—although there are honestly so many more things I'd like to have done or places I'd like to have explored instead. But, hey, I can always do that myself some other time, right? One of our highlights on this trip is visiting Candi Ratu Boko on the outskirts of town. It is a huge garden filled with ruinous stones dating back to the 8th century. It is technically not a temple, but the ruins of a palace, so it is often called Keraton Ratu Boko as well.

Taman Safari t-shirt // hand-me-down skirt + purse + jumper // thrifted loafers // photos by Agung

As my first company outing, it wasn't too bad. I had tons of fun, for the most part, but I suppose travelling with people who don't necessarily share your interests can be a little taxing. While talking about the trip with my sister afterwards, she told me of all these interesting, beautiful places we could have visited instead. But, alas, the itinerary wasn't up to me—and I'm pretty sure most people at the office wouldn't have wanted to go there anyway. Before we departed, I thought of this outing as a company-paid vacation of sorts—which it was, I suppose—but I was completely delusional if I thought it was going to be nearly as enjoyable as going away with a select few close friends. That being said, I'm very grateful for this trip. It put me in situations I haven't had to face in years and, well, it's paid by the office. If it had been up to my own wallet, who knows if I would travel at all?

From Trash to Cash

I made these paper bracelets to make the event felt a lot cooler than it was :')

Yesterday at work, a co-worker and I hosted a trash-related internal event. Come to think of it, it was kind of insane, to have practically only two people in the committee—not going to lie, I was stressed out of my mind. Basically, the event goes like this: we find a field near the workplace that is filled with garbage, we collect all that waste and give them to the waste bank. Simple, right? Yeah...in theory. It turns out to be much harder than that—especially given the Indonesian bureaucracy. It's even harder to try to organise the people at work to gather at the same time—a negative Nelly not helping, of course. But we finally managed it. Already at the start, the event was delayed—due to some under preparation on our part and other issues. We should've started at 1PM, but ended up starting at around 1.30PM. There were a total of 28 people from work joining the event and we divided them into 6 groups. We distributed trash bags, masks and gloves among them and led them to the field on foot—it was only a 3-minute walk away. The field, by the way, is like an aviary kingdom, with numerous chickens, ducks and one King Turkey.

Photos by my beloved boss Mas Indra

Here's where things started to go horribly wrong: as we reached the field at 2PM, it started raining. At first, we powered through—all the groups were free to roam about the field and gather all the trash that they could get their hands on. It wasn't long, before the drizzle turns into quite a windy rain. Needless to say, we had to cut the event short—from the original 75 minutes of trash collecting, to 20 minutes and then to 5 minutes—and we headed back to the office. While the participants helped themselves to fresh mango mixed with dragonfruit juice my partner provided, the committee weighed the trash bags to determine which group got the most garbage. The total amount of garbage collected in the span of 5 minutes alone, by the way, makes up 26.5kg. How insane is that?! Afterwards, we announced the winner and rewarded them with some cool prizes—ahem, stainless steel straw set, ahem. It was around 2.35PM when the whole thing ended. Truth be told, my partner and I still need to sort the waste to be picked up by the waste bank—but that's a tale for another day.

Thank you to everyone at work who participated and supported our event!

We're definitely still new at this so it was all over the place, but we'd love to do this again more regularly. Of course, we'd love to have your support then too. 

The Wheel Starts Turning

How can life change so profoundly in a year? How can everything just shift in the span of 365 days? It's strange, when you look back on it, because so many things happened in 2018 that I never imagined would happen to me—at least not for a few more years. Some of them may seem minuscule and minor, but actually create a huge ripple effect and, thus, leave a huge impact on me. It can be something as simple as a few reassuring words or as big as a grand gesture. So long as I know the true intentions behind them are pure and loving, I'll always hold on to them so tightly. It's also so, so strange how I've decided to do so much and change my life so dramatically, once I no longer have my silver spoons anymore. Strange, isn't it, how life works out that way? But, let's start at the beginning and make our way down!

January

January has always looked rather bleak. The year started with me getting a new haircut and announcing that I will be blogging a lot less. It touched my heart to see a lot more people responding to this (barely) news than I had expected. It was a really hard month for me, mostly due to my finances, but I did get some good times too. One of my best friends Uli had a birthday get-together and it was really nice catching up with everyone—whilst stuffing our faces with food. Crossed off the first thing on my yearly goals: I finished the Harry Potter series! It took a lot less time than I thought and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Around the same time, by the end of the month, I received an incredibly, mind-blowingly, unexpectedly beautiful and miraculous surprise: FIRU CAME HOME!

February

Needless to say, February was marvellous! I mean, no, not really. In reality, there was a lot of crying, a lot of laughter and a lot of questions. Firu only stayed for a month, so he had to divide his time between me, his family and his friends, so we didn't get 24/7 together, obviously. We hung out with Edwin and Wilson—who you might recognise from my previous posts—and Iqbal and Gita who just arrived home for good. We went on our first date in over 3 years and the best date of our lives. We talked about everything we couldn't say over the internet. Our relationship was blown wide open and we dove more deeply into it like we've never done before. It's so surreal and amazing how, even after over 7 years, there were still things we could learn from one another. Illustration-wise, this month I officially opened my Tictail store and joined a fun artistic challenge—which I won! Also, I started working for Joko's World too. This was also the month I took the first trip of the year. It was quite low-key but really, really pleasant. I enjoyed it so much! It was the best month of the past few years and this is how I felt by the end of it.

March

March taught me that I'm stronger than I think I am. Crying over Firu only lasted a few nights and we got used to our previous lives again. How weird is that? I'm very grateful for my friends, though, because they helped me through whatever storm brewing in my mind. My friend Vivi came back from Malaysia and together with Jess we spent a playful day at IKEA. It was so much fun! Jess was kind enough to share her Netflix trial period with me and I didn't waste time tasting as many exclusive series and movies as I possibly could. My friend Divina also came to town this month and asked me to join her meet-and-greet session with a few of her viewers—she's a Youtuber, FYI. We had such a barrel of laughter—and I got to know new people. Also, Vina was kind enough to give me some of her old clothes. So excited to style them in all the ways to Sunday! Book-wise, I finished yet another magical series that I loved as a teenager: The Chronicles of Narnia! Too many levels of meaning between the lines with this one. 

April

April was a book-themed month, it seems. At the start of it, my sister and I managed to go to Big Bad Wolf Book Sale and grab a couple books. On another weekend, we also had the chance to drop by Ruang Buku by Book for Good. Towards the end of the month, the Kickstarter project's reward that I backed finally arrived on my doorstep. It's the two art books by Lois van Baarle! Got through both of them in a day, 'cause they're just so inspiring! I'm basically happily drowning in books by now. Of course, April means Fashion Revolution Week. This year I tried to post daily too, although with less structure than I did last year. You can go here to check out all my FRW posts so far, including the love affair I have with my penny loafers. Professionally, I got my first ever Tictail client this month and I had so much fun doing their commission. I still had a some flaws needing of work, but I'm eager to learn from my mistakes.

May

May doesn't particularly have a theme, but it does revolve a little bit around culture and the environment. The month started with a wonderful surprise from WWF Indonesia. You see, a couple months previously, when I was just hanging out with some friends, they approached me and I joined their supporter program. They sent me this awesome t-shirt in thank you and I love it! This is the second t-shirt I got from them. Aside from that, I've been preoccupied by Europe on Screen for the first two weeks of May, while only catching two documentaries in the end. They were rather interesting and not too heavy. Lastly, Prof. Shinichi Ito from Musashino Art University—Saku-chan's almamater!—came to my campus and gave an intriguing lecture on Explore and Experiment, showing us his previous projects combining local knowledge and innovative ideas in Ghana and The Philippines. So honoured to have attended! Somewhere along the line, Ramadan rolled out just like that.

June

June was hard! Well, Ramadan was hard and I got so stressed out that my period came very, very late this month. My loved ones' birthdays just flew right by, amidst all my frustration. There were so many assignments and jobs from work that I almost never had time to just pause and breathe. Until I visited my Grandparents', of course. My sister and I explored the town as usual, starting with Tugu Pahlawan, then strolling through Tunjungan Street and trying a new burger joint in town. To be honest, though, it also wasn't the best family holiday we've ever experienced. My mind was still partially stuck in school too, because piles of assignments loomed over me still. Give me a bloody break, for eff's sake! By the end of it, though, I managed to slow down a bit and listen to various podcasts, including Halbe Katoffl—my favourite!—Armchair Expert, Being Boss and Ctrl Alt Delete.

July

July was already immensely better. I could see light at the end of the tunnel—with the semester break falling mid-month—so it was easier to power through. This month has allowed me more time to work on my personal illustrations, starting with Firu's birthday illustration. I also joined a couple #drawthisinyourstyle challenges, such as those by Stephanie Priscilla and Loish. Then our 8th anniversary rolled around, for which I did a quick illustration. And I managed to finally finish my Gym Leadersona. So fun to make! Offline, it was quite a good month, because Iva is home again! We hung out with Edwin and Wilson once and had a ladies date once—both of which were filled with pleasant catch-ups and TMI convos (lol). Also, I had the chance to catch up with Jess and Vivi again, as well as visit my old uni friends' portfolio exhibition. So proud to have such talented friends! This was actually the month I stopped eating out, but it turns out to still be rather eventful in the end.

August

Starting the month right, August opened up with a post on Zero Waste in Indonesia. I finally kicked it off with this lifestyle this year and I'm so, so happy to head in the right direction. Please check it out if you're interested in starting a kinder lifestyle on this earth! You can also find more of my experience in this transition on my instagram story highlights. More on the blog, obviously, sticking to my tradition of the past four years, there's an Indonesian-only post on Independence Day. Meanwhile, real life just kicked off into full gear of preparing for Comifuro XI, where I opened a booth with a few friends. It wasn't wildly successful, but it was leagues better than my first experience and I enjoyed it very, very much! The next day, my friend Gina asked me to help out with a late-night fashion photoshoot with a couple of her Japanese friends. It was so much fun and I felt very inspired for future outfit posts. What a great month before going back to class!

September

In comparison to the previous month, September is pretty tame. It started out right with me borrowing a pile of books from my friend Maya. They have been such great, stimulating and educating reads—I'd expect no less from Maya. Aside from books, September has been signified by two defining subjects. The first one is Japanese films and series—which I obsessively consumed in the span of around two weeks. The second one is waste-sorting. Although it's been part of my life since the end of August, I kept on exploring and finding out more about it throughout the rest of this month. Stainless steel became my life and I tried out menstrual cup for the first time. Mid-September dragged me, kicking and screaming, back to uni—but it turns out to be a lot more fun than before. Socially, I rarely spent time outside of the house, although I managed to hang out with my best friends and made new friends who I found online. It was pretty low key and chill, just what I need.

October

October is, as you know, my birthday month—and it just so happens to be the month when all the stars were aligned. It started out with great news on the career front. First off, there's the two-part sponsored posts with Emma and Campaign Monitor. Then there's a new job from a recurring client—which, unfortunately, is still kept behind curtains this far. This year I also don't hate my birthday so much, because I felt absolutely loved by my friends and family. It could be that I was finally growing up—or it could also be thanks to Bintaro Design District. At 26, I've finally decided to put an end to the X Before Y Goals, and start with the 30 Before 30 List. It'll keep me a lot more focused and finally moving in the right direction, as far as life goals go. It also happens to be the month I was forced to learn about taxes—on the day I just posted it as one of my goals—and thought about money in relation to my friends. Lastly, because I'm lazy, I dressed up as modern Snow White on Halloween—despite the fact that she's my least favourite Disney princess—and didn't go anywhere (lol).

November

November was exciting at best and frustrating at worst. It opened up with a lucky draw—that I won!—from Sadhu. Finally, my first ever statement earrings—and it's ethical too! Being left home alone the second weekend this month, I decided to hit two fashion events at the same time. The first one being the Louis Vuitton Time Capsule exhibition—which is said to be a once-in-a-lifetime event in Indonesia—and the second one is the Timun Mas installation by Sejauh Mata Memandang—which I visited again with my friend Jess. A balance, y'know, of the ludicrous, high-end and the ethical, locally-made. Speaking of balance, the week after that lonesome weekend I went to the movies twice with my Dad and Sis—first to cry over Freddie Mercury and second to not be impressed by Dumbledore and Grindelwald. On to the frustrating side, this was a month of midterm exams and internship-hunting. I was pretty sleep-deprived and down for the count by the end of it.

December

December this time makes me feel somewhat hopeful. The month started with yet another film festival—this time it's Japan Cinema Week. Just like all the other times I went to a festival, I only managed to catch two films this time too. First, my sister and I went to see Mary and the Witch's Flower and, second, I went with my friends Jess and Vivi to see 8-Year Engagement. They were very different movies, but both really good and riveting. Aside from that, I also started my internship this month! It was my first ever experience working in an office and I was so excited. Check out the blog post I wrote for them—Indonesian only, sorry! Two great things about this: I get to work together with one of my best friends Gina and it's a pretty chill, open-space office, so hopefully I'll be able to fit in. Lastly, this is finally the year I managed to read 50 books. In fact, I finished 60 books! How 'bout that?

This year was hard to place. It was a jumble of things, a flurry of feelings and a collection of memories. When it was high, it was really high, but when it was low, it broke me to pieces. It was the year when time feels to move and my life is set into motion again. If I had to describe this year—just like I did with all the previous ones—I guess I have to say: in motion. This was the year I finally started working long-term with people from abroad; the year I successfully sold my artwork; the year I started transitioning towards low-impact lifestyle and the year I started an office job—although still an intern. Mentally, this was the year I became financially wiser; the year I could almost let go of Germany completely; the year I was finally okay with my birthday being what it is and the year I could make peace with not having as many friends as I would've liked. Ultimately, this year was changed forever early on, when Firu decided to come home for a month. It changed how I see our relationship and how I would feel about the whole year—maybe even beyond that. It gave me freedom and security and everything else in between. Let us now go to the scoreboard:

1. Make an illustration for every important date/holiday ✓
2. Get a second income source/job ✓
3. Create monthly goals (and accomplish them)
4. Have a healthy and supportive relationship with Firu ♥ ✓
5. Take care of myself physically and mentally ✓

Okay, the first item on this list: I did manage to do it for at least 2 months before giving up altogether. It took way too much time and effort, so if I'd stuck with this goal, I don't think I would have much time for other goals of mine—particularly in the career and self-development front. Now, about the second source of income, it comes in the form of another long-term client, but also other additions. For example, events like Comic Frontier or my Tictail store really helped me financially. Towards the end of the year, however, that comes in the form of an internship. Still far from being financially stable, unfortunately, but I was rather fine for a while—although, such is usually the case with freelance, it's very shaky. However, I had pretty much no time to create monthly goals, so I scrapped that. With Firu's brief homecoming, we managed to talk a lot about our relationship and our goals as a couple. It has changed our relationship like nothing before—it could only get better. Taking care of myself is an on and off situation—sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't. For the most part, I think I'm doing a pretty good job at it.

1. Be proactive in my internship
2. Make headway on my 30 Before 30 goals
3. Read more quality over quantity
4. Support and always improve communication with Firu ♥ 
5. Always remember to rest when needed

2019 holds a lot of promise, hopefully it'll be able to keep it. What do YOU want to achieve in the next 365 days?