Can’t Even Think Of A Decent Title.

The first few interactions with people, we all make these silent decisions in our hearts on whether or not we like these people (for lack of better words). Over time, some remain in good contact with us, some even become our friends.

Call me naive or whatever, when I decide that I like a person, I really, really make room for him/her somewhere in my heart. Heck, once, I got sad having to part with someone I’d known for only two months, and we barely even talked during that time (due to language barrier, mind you). But during that small period of time, I saw and appreciated how sincere that person was.

If I can see a person I barely know in that light, you can probably get the idea of how I see (and feel) for people I eventually claim as “friends”. As careless a person as I am, I do not take people in my life lightly.

My problem, however, is that I have this tendency of putting people I adore on a pedestal. As John Green puts it : “we all romanticize the people we adore”. I just have this deluded thinking that these people won’t deceive me. I’m not talking about them not having flaws (like being lazy, untidy, cocky, etc). I’m talking about them not hurting my feelings by lying to me, cheating on me, stabbing me from the back, putting up a fake facade (basically : lying to me). In my currency, trust is expensive (I was gonna say expensive as hell, but it’s easy to go to hell, so that wouldn’t be a valid phrase xD)

My problem is that. And so, one day, I woke up, found out someone lied to me and bham~! I am literally confused now. I don’t really know anymore how to think of people and who to trust.

Be everything you are, good or bad, just be honest about it. I don’t see the point of a relationship if it is built on lies. It may look trivial, like a girlfriend lying about liking soccer because her boyfriend does. Then you come across a situation like Tina on Glee pretending to have this ‘illness’ of stuttering when she talks so that people would sympathize with her. Either way, what’s. the. point.

I am still figuring out how I’m supposed to approach the relationships I have with people. Part of being a grown up, eh. It’s not easy to accept that the world is not as beautiful as I’d want it to be. Turns out, not everyone deserves to be trusted. Not everyone has good intentions. Not everyone wants to be your friend. Not everyone cares about how you feel.

Ugh.

- cheers to all -

Something To Run For

Having a clear set of purpose really gives you a whole new perspective on the way you work, the way you live.

Something great happened to me yesterday. I got reminded of my purpose. And the impact of it on my day : amazing. I used my working time better (cause I didn’t want any wasted when I could be doing something toward reaching my goal), I felt happier (and believe me, I’m already a happy person normally), also more motivated and excited to embrace what’s in store for me in the future.

When I was in college, I was fed a lot of talk on how important it is to have a vision, to have a set of goals that you want to achieve in life. And yes, I had an idea of what I wanted to be, of the life I wanted to lead, but I never let myself wanted it too much. I guess somewhere in the web of my life, I caught the wrong message from the wrong circumstances and the wrong people, and I started to think I was doing the right thing denying myself what I really wanted.

The result of it? A pretty painting of life with no particular pattern or sense, I guess. I worked, I performed well, I did all sorts of things happily, but even when I achieve excellent performance, or people praise me for what I did, I couldn’t appreciate myself. What’s the point? I didn’t know where I wanted all those things to take me to.

Now, though. Now. The past year, I’ve been reminded again of what I really want in my life, and I’ve been surrounded by passionate people who encourage me to pursue my dreams. And yesterday I got reminded about the notion of having a clear vision statement and really, really running towards it. As my problem used to be not letting myself wanting something so much, I found a quote that really spoke to me : “Don’t be afraid to give yourself everything you’ve ever wanted in life.”

When you know what you want, don’t hesitate to ask for it and work for it. I ponder on what the sentence represents to me, and it kind of summarizes some of the decisions I have made in my life that initially made people frown. I often had to leave my comfort zone. But I had figured out what I wanted. So I took my risks anyway and grabbed my chances. Now, I just have to apply the same thing toward reaching my dreams.

If you feel like you still have no idea where your passion lies, find it. Borrowing Pastor Brian Houston’s words, it’s amazing to have a reason to run toward and for something that is far more important than ourselves. It makes a lot of difference. Good difference.

- cheers to all -

First Attempt at Carrot Cake! (Recipe)

One of the things I like about holidays is that I have a lot of extra time to cook. I don’t like being rushed when I cook, and I don’t really like the idea of cooking just for the sake of having something to put in my mouth. (You know how some think that when you’re cooking for yourself only, you don’t really need to care that much about its taste and presentation? I can’t buy that.) Anyway, cooking during the busy days of the semester is rare for me unless I’m doing it together with a friend, so having the time this week to actually cook and bake stuff feels so good.

This week I wanted to make banana bread, but couldn’t find the most important ingredient : banana, since most places are closed due to Chinese New Year celebration. I figured since I had carrots in the dorm’s fridge, it might be interesting to try out making carrot cake. I went through recipes on the internet, and finally adapted one from here.

Here’s how I did it (with measurements already converted to grams, to make it easier for everybody) :

170 ml vegetable oil
200 grams brown sugar
2 eggs
240 grams flour
1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (You may prefer to swap this with cinammon. I didn’t have any, so I used vanilla)
1 big carrot, grated

I mixed the oil and the sugar first until they blended. I added the eggs one by one, each time beating the mixture ’til blended well. Afterwards, I slowly added the flour, which had been mixed with baking powder, salt and vanilla extract.
After the dough is nicely mixed together, I stirred in the grated carrots.

Baking took around 20-30 minutes for me. I used a 7-3/8 x 3-5/8 x 2 inch pan, so you might want to double or triple the amount of ingredients according to the size of the cake you want to make.

I love this recipe. I love that the cake has carrot in it but still tastes really good. The friends who tasted it also told me they liked it.

Will definitely make this again, probably with cinammon and the addition of chopped nuts.

- cheers to all -

Everybody Has A Story

Dramatic, witty, sad or happy. I’m a firm believer that everybody’s got a story, a part of their life that may inspire people around them. And so it’s always a pleasure to have someone willing to share a piece of what they have, with the hope that it may move someone somewhere in a way or another.

In tonight’s post I’m sharing a story from Fery Abdul Choliq, one of the many Indonesians currently studying in Taiwan. In this video produced by Lentera Ide PPI Taiwan, he recounts what he research he currently works on, and the businesses he runs as he pursues his study.

Kindly watch it, and perhaps also tell me what you think about it?  Hope it moves you in some way!

- cheers to all -