In Memoriam of Imelda Fridajanti

Frida's Latest Picture (posted on Facebook by March 7)

On Wednesday morning, March 13 while browsing my friends' status on Facebook, my eyes caught a comment in a friend's status. The person wished a Rest-in-Peace for my friend. What??? I opened the whole posting and read from up to bottom. It was said that my friend - Imelda Fridajanti - had an accident while rafting on the previous day and passed away on 4pm in the afternoon. It shocked me, because I still read her posting on Facebook two days before....

Imelda Fridajanti was an old friend from my junior high school. We shared the same class during the first two years. I didn't remember many of my classmates on the junior high school. Frida - that's what we used to call her - was one of the very few I remembered. We separated during the third year. Then I went to a different school for the senior years, while she continued at the same school.

We met again on 2009, 22 years after separated, thanks to Facebook. It was quite surprising that she still remembered me. After that, we kept in touch through Facebook. She liked to post interesting status, that invited her friends to give opinion and sometimes debated...hehehe...

During these last four years, I only met her once. She came to my office during one of her busy day. After that, many times she had invited me to come along in small reunions with other classmates. But I was never able to attend. Firstly, because it was always in a wrong time. Secondly - maybe the biggest reason - because I didn't remember any of other guests. It surely will make me very awkward and feel very out of place....hehehe...

Now, Frida is no longer here anymore. I will miss reading her postings on Facebook. One of her friend mentioned that we had lost a valuable friend, who always actively invited her old friends to reconnect. Farewell, my friend, hope we'll meet again in the next life.....

Life without TV

image source : dreamstime.com

Until last month, I had a quite ancient 16" color TV in my bedroom. It used to belong to my late grandmother who had died more than 10 years ago.... Very old TV, huh? hihihi... Nevertheless, that TV had become my entertainment at the end of my days. Not frequently, though. I used to watch movies on TV after 9pm or on weekends and holidays, when I'm not too lazy and sleepy...hehehe...

Last December, just before Christmas, my TV suddenly couldn't be turned on. Due to the holiday and the family outing plan, it stayed broken till after New Year. It was the first time after soooo many years that I spent New Year's Eve downstairs with my family and shared the TV there....hehehe... Quite annoying, actually. I preferred watching box-office movies, while my sister and Mom wanted to watch a music concert in other TV stations. So, we kept changing channel during commercials break, and made me lost the ending of an interesting movie (that I had already forgotten what the title was....hehehe...)

After New Year, Mom had the TV repaired. But this time, I didn't have enough time and energy to watch TV. My laundry business has been growing bigger and bigger, and I struggled to keep up with the heavy schedule between my formal working hours and the informal ones. At least twice a week, I go to bed not sooner than 10pm and have to wake up again at 4.30 next morning. So, when the TV was broken again a week after being repaired, I . Of course it also means I didn't keep up with latest news and gossips....hehehe... My only source is Mom and Sunday Newspaper (if I have time to read it...hehehe...)

Last week, due to her moving from a boarding room to an apartment, my sister (who knew about my broken TV) sent her old TV home. She preferred to buy a new, slimmer TV to fit in with the small space of her apartment. So, I got the family 21" TV to replace my old one, while the 32" flat-screen TV from my sister is being put in the living room.

Until now, I still rarely turn on the 21" TV. But every time I sit on my bed and look at the TV just across my bed, I'm always amazed about how bigger it is....makes my bedroom feels so crowded....hihihi.... I plan to move the TV to the upstairs living room as soon as I could re-arrange the furniture there. That way, it won't be look that big and my Little One could watch TV without messing up my bedroom....:P...

Gasses in My Stomach

During the last two months, I'd been twice struck by gastritis. The first one was on December, I kind of expected it, because I was just under a long stress.....four months of working alone on 4 different projects with a tight deadline each. Nevertheless, I was also a little surprised when it attacked me. All of my works were already behind me for a week, so I was just enjoying lazy moments at work.There was no usual signs of discomfort like before. I still ate normally, till suddenly I got a stomachache on Sunday night, just before I planned to go to bed. In the end, I was unable to sleep at all and couldn't report to work on Monday morning. Made quite a havoc at the office, too....hihihi....since my boss had received an invitation for a follow-up meeting with a client....hehehe...

The recovery took a long time. I think mostly because I pushed myself back to work the very next day. Plus, there were several new customers for my laundry business. It means I couldn't have enough rest as much as my body need it. At least, two times a week I have a very looooong day, start at 5am and won't end before 10pm. Sometimes, the moment I reach home from work, I will depart again to deliver the laundries. No time to rest, not even for a little snack. And that's when the second struck came by.....

Last month, I was down again from gastritis. Thankfully, this time it attacked on Saturday. Of course, it means I spent the weekend feeling sick....hihihi...so much waste....hihihi.. It was almost three weeks ago, and  I still feel not 100% recovered till now. At the positive side, the last two months I had lost weight more than a year cycling....hahahaha...

Twice got sick by the same illness alerted me. Something needed to change, because I had no time to get sick. Now, I always make sure that there's some snacks ready in the car during the delivery day, so I won't get suffered from having late dinner or none at all. I'm also supported by some antacid pills for a while. I hope those two will help to keep the gasses in my stomach happy and calm down....:)

Review on 2012 (Part 3): Starting My Own Business

After did a thorough discussion with Mom and my sister, finally in the middle of year 2012 Mom and I braved ourselves to open a laundry. Well, actually it was I who needed to be brave...hehehe... 

It was a good friend of mine who moved into an apartment nearby which gave a big push to my decision. And of course the stars supported it....hihihi... They said that 2012 was a good time for my kind to open a business and it would be better something that related to water....THERE!!!...hihihi... Somehow, I felt that God had heard my plea and answered non-directly of course...(typical...hihihi...)

So, for almost six months now, I pick-up and deliver laundry to the apartment twice a week in the evenings. It's still quite overwhelming and need a hard discipline to pump up my energy till late nights.

At first, I thought that I had to get at least 30 customers before I resigned from my present job and fully involved into this laundry business. Because till now, it's still my Mom who does most of the jobs, like pre-washing, operating the washing machine, and supervising the ironing. I needed 30 customers to balance with my present salary.

But after three months doing the business, I could see that 30 customers is too high to achieve in a year....since I hope that I will be able to resign at least at the end of 2013.... Also, I could see that even having three regular customers at the time, sometimes the job was quite overwhelming. Several times, I had to help ironing the clothes after I was home from my regular job. So, I recalculated and decided that if God is willing to entrust me with 10 regular customers, then I'll hand in my resignation.

At the moment, my laundry business have 4 regular customers, and in the past two weeks we just got 2 new customers. Already SIX customers!!! I'm so ecstaticII! I really hope that my birthday wish will become true on 2013: to be financially independent....so help me, God....!

Review on 2012 (Part 2) : LEAVE THE YOUTH CHOIR

I'd joined the Catholic Church Choir in my parish since 1988....when I was still in the senior high school. At the moment, my parish was still very young and there was no youth community. The choir was builted to facilitate the young ages, so we could have at least one regular activity to meet and unite every week. At the moment, our choir didn't have a name. We simply was called St. Aloysius Gonzaga Youth Choir.

 

I had been through too many managerial changes while I was still an active member in this choir. And not just managerial. There was many changes in our members, too... Moving out of our parish because of the new job or living places, got married or even have a child.... Yes, our youth choir was no longer purely for single, unmarried youth. We became so solid, that marriage couldn't stop us getting together and training our voice.

 

This year, after suffering for a lack of active members for some time, the management finally was able to persuade the newer youth generation to join the choir which is now called AG Voice (AG is a shortened from Aloysius Gonzaga, our parish's name). These new members are averagely half of my age....makes me one of two eldest members in the choir...hehehe... The other one is also the long-time member like me. We're both the first generation of the choir....hehehe...

 

In the mid-year, the management conducted a change-over. At the time, I was almost a life-time songs coordinator. I handled the task since 1990.....22 years!!! So many times I asked each new management to find my replacement, but no one wanted the job....[sigh!]. In my point of view, it's a simple task. You just have to prepare and organize the songs for each assignment, make sure there's enough copies for each member, and file those songs.

 

Anyway, this time I insisted the management to also replace me. I just started my own business which for a while only runs in the evenings, makes me super-duper tired to attend any choir practices. Of course, I didn't say my real reason to them. I just said that it really, really didn't fair to left me behind one more time....hehehe.. So, finally there is one new blood who agree to takeover my task...hurrrrayyy...!!! And started the heavy job for me to compile all of those songs in my house in containers, ready to ship out to its new home.

 

Slowly but sure, I started to backout from the choir. I didn't join their weekend retreat out of town. Didn't attend wedding choirs on Saturdays. And finally skipped practices. At first, I only told them that I had something to do that evening. One week became two weeks, became one month and finally I decided not to join in this Christmas duty. Success!!!!!

 

Finally, I'm able to leave the choir, with no regrets at all. Someone is finally doing my old task. The new generation of choir has a good numbers of member and good voice quality...more than mine, I think....:)... One nice accomplishment of mine on 2012....:)

 

After on duty for Holy Saturday 2012