Food Trial #1: Failed but pretty lol

Just like some other people who love to eat, I always have interest in cooking. However, I have this habit to not measure the ingredients and sometimes have random ideas, even though I look at recipe. I am not sure why, but maybe ’cause my mom also cook that way??? lol. Because of that habit, I usually cook one-serving since I can’t guarantee the taste 😅 Well sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s failed, and sometimes I just follow the recipe! It all really depends on what I have at home. I almost never cook during my undergraduate days because I was already tired in keeping up the assignments and even have irregular eating schedule 😦 I almost always chose to just eat whatever we had at home —even if it’s just rice+salt lol— instead of cooking something. Yeah that bad. But these days, I’m back on track!! Since last year I started to pay attention in my health and want to healthier food. Even though I always eat homecooked foods —which means way healthier than take out foods—, my old passion to try cooking random-unfamiliar foods —to my mom— is back!!! 😆 I actually considered this particular one as failed based on the taste.. BUT!! the food came out sooo prettyyyyy that I couldn’t help but want to share it here 🥺🥺🥺

GRILLED SALMON & MUSHROOM

The main food in this dish is grilled salmon and mushroom. The salmon got burnt I know T^T it’s all because I marinated this in lemon, garlic, and HONEY. I forgot that I have honey and cook it in medium fire TT^TT the bunt looks pretty bad but fortunately it didn’t really affect the taste. I even barely taste the burnt?? And about the taste…. I think I didn’t marinated it long enough because I barely taste the marinade 😣 it’s alright though, salmon itself already tastes good!! I really like the texture, reminds me of one of my favourite fish, mackerel!

For the mushroom, I grilled them in the simplest way: sprinkle some salts and chilli powder then just wait until the juice came out! I first knew that mushroom can be cooked this way when I tried Korean BBQ. They restaurant that I visited provide mushroom as one of the side dish to be grilled. As far as I know, not a lot of people like the juice that came out or the mushroom that cooked this way. When I first tried it, it somehow tastes weird. But as I tried it again, I strangely started to enjoy the taste! For those who doesn’t like them, I recommend to sprinkle a little bit of salt (and spices). It really improves the taste and make a delicious broth!

CAULIFLOWER RICE

I just recently know about cauliflower rice, a substitute for the actual rice. I looked for some recipes and turns out you just need to cooked it like fried rice! it seems interesting so I decided to tried one. In the videos that I watched it is said that we need to use food processor or medium grate, but I only have a fine grate. It took too long for the stems to finely grated so I ended up chopped them with knife lol. I only roughly season it with basic seasonings —salt, garlic, and chili powder— so I’m not satisfied with the taste, but I like the texture. I gonna try to make this again later!

???

I literally don’t know what this side dish called lol. Maybe salad?? The base are spinach and enoki mushroom. I originally want to lightly season it with my last drop of soy sauce. Buuuut somehow my mom thought it’s leftover sweet soy sauce so I need to think of other way TT^TT Then I got this idea to make my own salty soy sauce with sweet soy sauce, a pinch of salt , and a little bit of water. I also add some sliced almonds in the last minute. You think it works? nope, it’s not 😂 the sweetness makes the sauce literally like sweet soy sauce+salt with too much water. The almond is not so bad but I think it will taste better if I roast it first.

And that was my failed but pretty lunch! I know it might be weird to post a failed cooking as the first food post lol but I’m sorry I can’t resist pretty snapshot loool 😆 I will share my cooking again if I happen to plate them prettily!

The _____ I’ve _____

A lot of things caught my interest. But I also have a wide range of interest for each of the interest—wait is this confusing lol.

4 years ago, I made a blog because of my interest in writing. Through that platform, I want to improve my writing skills. That blog was intended for posting stories—fictions and so-called poems that I wrote. Around one or two years later, I also made this blog to share my thoughts and experiences. As I expected, being consistent to a new habit, especially when it is not an obligatory matter, is not easy. I ended up only wrote a few posts. Because of the unfortunate event that recently struck almost all part of the world including my country, I have been staying home for almost a week. I actually love being home. But, turns out the boredom hit me in few days since I only have some works left. I thought of what should I do for the time being to kill this boredom and suddenly remember of this blog. In fact, I already planned some contents for my Instagram for expanding my additional skills—or hobbies lol because I do not need to write too much words there. And then I thought, since I have more free time, why don’t I post on my blog too and write more? I can not let this url wasted! This might be a good start for me too. I decided to divide the posts—related to my Instagram account into 4 main focus. Read, Listen, Watch, and Made.

The Books I’ve Read

I always love reading since I was little. Just like most kids, it was started from picture books⁠—Japanese comic/manga to be exact. At that time I also read few full-text children books, but I started to have interest in middle school. My middle school’s library is my source of books, and I almost never took my library card. I am sure that I (almost) always borrowed a new book as I returned the other book. It has been in my thought since a long time ago that writing what I thought about the books that I read is the easiest way to polish up my writing and critical skills. I left some reviews on Goodreads but I still think reviewing is so hard. I am not picky to try something but I am so picky to left comment on something. Does it sounds weird?

The Song / Podcast I Listen To

My interest in music also started in middle school. Of course I also listened to music a lot before. But started from that time, I feel conscious and enjoy more about the music itself. Just like books, I also listen to wide range of music genres. This makes me have similar taste with most of my friends. But as the time goes by, my taste become more specific. I tend to listen to particular type of songs for most of the time. But, of course I still can enjoy songs out of that range, it is all depends on the mood! I mostly listened to Korean, my country’s—Indonesian, Western, and Japanese. But, one day I tried to listen to songs from several South East Asian countries. Guess what? I enjoy Thai songs a lot! especially the rap and R&B one. They have very nice beat and I do not mind the language. On the contrary, I found it interesting. Long story short made this section because I discover a lot of good songs that a lot of people might not know. I want to share it because they definitely deserve more recognition. Other than songs, I also listen to podcast. I started because of studying for IELTS on 2018, to improve my listening skills. But now, I enjoy it more and more. It is a perfect solution when my eyes are tired but I want to gain some new information. I might rarely post about podcast since now I mostly listen to one podcast. But, I include it here in case I discover something interesting.

The Series / Movies I’ve Watched

Well this is just another ordinary content. Who do not like to binge-watch? Well maybe some people don’t but, most people do right?! But to be honest, I always prefer series than movies meanwhile most people around me always choose movies. I am not sure but it might be because I love the curiosity for the next ep. That feeling is similar to when we read a chapter in a book and can not resist to read the next chapter. The thrills! It is similar with books, I can not easily comment about series or movies. The difference, I am more picky to choose the series or movies that I am going to watch. I might combine movies and books too since it is interesting to see the difference in the story development process.

The Things I’ve Made

This section will be the most original section. I have a lot of hobbies that include making process. It can be art, gift, videos, journal, stories, ideas or anything else that can be produced by me. I do not know what to say about this section but, please anticipate it!

The only thing I hope for now is to be consistent on filling this blog with the things that might be helpful for whoever read this as well as help me to improve myself. Aside from these contents, I am also planning to do some simple study cases like what I did back then in one of my architecture class. Have a nice day!

Random Thoughts #1

Past midnight will always be my favorite time of the day. Around this time, I am the only one who’s still awake so my mind can wander freely here and there. On the background Spotify played my favourite late night songs. Once in a while it also plays some ads. Talking about ads, I got to learn that some people hate the ads. They prefer to apply for premium subscription, usually because they also often using it from their phone. It is hard to use Spotify on phone if you are not premium member. But for me, I always thought that for songs, the sound system on pc is way more enjoyable than phone. Furthermore, I am not a fan of earphone, which is (almost) everyone’s favourite. I found it uncomfortable. This is an unpopular opinion, but I mostly use my phone to listen to podcast⁠—yes I often use earphone for this because it is my favourite lullaby and I can not put it on speaker at night. Podcast works the same whether on pc or phone, so I got no problem here. Considering those matters, subscribe for premium one seems useless. I don’t hate the ads anyway. Sometimes I found a new favourite singer from the ads. Maybe I just love discovering something new? I don’t know.

This blog is supposed to help me improve my writing skills. As I don’t have any planned contents to post, this random thoughts might popped up once in a while lol ah I am suddenly getting sleepy~_~ alright maybe no one read this but⁠—nighty night⁠!

Scheduled Life? Is it important?

Do you ever feels like your life is so boring and unorganized?

When my graduation day was over, my unemployed life was started. It was okay at first, who don’t like being free? you don’t need to go to class or do any assignments. I enjoyed my life with doing my hobbies, watching variety shows, fangirling, hang out with friend, things that I need to hold back on my last study year. I went to South Korea for a month long summer school program just around a week after my final presentation and came back also around a week before graduation day —gonna write about my experience later—, so I thought I deserves me time! my friends already got 1 month break, some even got around 3 months break because the graduation day was scheduled in August.

I was still enjoying my freedom when I got a noticed about my study program need assistant for international accreditation preparation, interesting but I gonna think about it first. Later at night, I was with my friend watching a traditional performance. I asked her whether she interested to apply for the position. She said she is also interested so that night we decided to contact the contact person and luckily we got accepted! it’s kind of part-time job, but well I’m no longer jobless! Long story short, it has been almost a year and I still stay in campus as an assistant for international accreditation preparation—yes the process is still on going when I write this lol so long. Sure this job is more on academic related, my job is to prepare documents not design something, but I never it because I got a lot of new experiences and insights. I helped my lecturer’s projects too in between so it’s not completely non-design-related. I also want to pursue master degree because the field of study that I’m interested in—urban design— was just briefly introduced in bachelor degree, so pursue master degree is a must, well at least that’s what I believe. Better try than give up ain’t it?

My routine is always the same, wake up – going to campus – home – watch something / do work related things until late night – sleep, sometimes I hang out with my friends. It keeps going on and on , it ain’t ALWAYS like that, but basically it is. With that boring routine, these past few weeks I strangely feel lost. Not completely lost and have nothing to do, but more like I often forget what I need to do or wonder ‘what should I do today?’. Of course I did what I need to do, but something felt missing that I felt like I did nothing but entertain myself, like I haven’t done my best. It went for a while until few weeks ago I remember that I abandoned my passport size journal. I have interest in journaling and making planner so I did it but stopped in the middle  —the inconsistency I know—. Hence I thought why don’t I try it again? I was focusing in make it looks pretty back then and writing what happened that day. For the planner, I usually made it as monthly tracker. Maybe I use the wrong method so it didn’t affect much so I stopped? I thought I need to make it more efficient by change the method, focusing on ‘what I need to do tomorrow’ not ‘what I did today’.

I started it simple by making daily to-do checklist. Since I’m focusing in ‘what I need to do tomorrow’, I would write it the night before. I Sometimes I forgot to write the checklist, being consistence definitely can’t happen in a night I guess? After a week or two it affect my routine. I felt like my life is more organized. I strangely always remember what I need to do that day…. I’m like 😱 when I realized that. I always thought I’m not an organized person and always do things without any plan. But if I think about it again… I was studying, so I automatically had schedule! I uncovered new fact about myself, that I unconsciously had schedule. Isn’t it sounds funny? So, I thought, maybe I actually need at least one rough schedule so I won’t be lost, and yes that’s what I’m trying to do. After around 2 weeks of trial, I try to make the to-do list a little bit more organized.

I made a page of weekly plan, I wrote fixed plan there so sometimes it’s empty on the first day of the week. I also write a page of to-watch list because at the beginning of the year I promise myself to do 1 week = 1 ep, I have too much watching list lol so I try to avoid binge watching. The rest of the pages are my usual daily to-do checklist. Everything goes well until today, and it’s my 4th week now. I passed almost the whole August with more ease feeling 😀 I also started to do my other secondary things that I need to do but not too urgent—hobbies included of course~—. I already got back to my listen to podcast habit (because I need to take IELTS exam, I count this as listening exercise lol and I’m addicted to Stephen Fry’s Harry Potter audiobook these days HE’S SOOOOO GOOD!!!), and recently I realized that reading in the morning is nice too. I have a lot of to-read list too, better read more often because sadly I still faaaaar away from my goodreads reading target 😩

Alright then, let’s see if I have any more experience to share later! Have a good day~

“Pikiran manusia menginginkan rutinitas, bahkan ketika pikiran itu, entah bagaimana, bersembunyi di surga ini.” —Eric Weiner: The Geography of Faith, translated by qanita publisher team.

*I can’t find the original version, I read a translated one so I quoted from that book 😦 I’m not sure about the original version, but if I translate it to English it would roughly be “The human’s mind wants a routine, even when it is somehow, hiding in this paradise.”

To write

If someone ask me what do I like to do, I will say a lot, like A LOT. I always want to try a lot of things, and writing is one of them. But writing.. is not easy. I mean, ‘to write’ the stories. It’s not like I don’t get any ideas—because I have a lot, but one of the main reason is because I want to do a lot of things at the same time and usually ends up do nothing.

Look at this blog this blog, it’s been a year since my greeting post!-_-

Actually I have another blogs and write pretty often that time, years ago, about random things because I just like to write. I make this new blog so I can write like that again—upgrade version of course. To share my thoughts. Today I decided to really start writing, it doesn’t matter how long the post or if it’s just random thought. Because writing can be memories, just like photographs.

[The Books I’ve Read] Dilan: Dia Adalah Dilanku Tahun 1990

Siapa yang nggak tau Dilan? Semenjak —atau bahkan sebelum? Dilan 1990 dirilis filmnya pada awal tahun 2018, hampir semua orang membicarakan Dilan, atau lebih tepatnya gombalan-gombalan Dilan.

“Jangan rindu, berat. Kamu nggak akan kuat, biar aku saja.”

“Milea kamu cantik, tapi aku belum mencintaimu. Enggak tahu kalau sore, tunggu aja.”

 

Bagi orang yang sering menggunakan sosial media, tentu kedua kutipan diatas sudah tidak asing lagi. Kata-kata romantis oleh Dilan kepada Milea tersebut bahkan sering dijadikan meme yang memenuhi timeline sosial media sampai rasanya bosan melihat Dilan lagi Dilan lagi. “Apaan dah, too cheesy kok bisa banyak yang suka sih?” adalah apa yang aku pikirkan setelah melihat timeline yang itu itu melulu dan trailer film Dilan. Iya, jujur waktu liat rasanya itu terlalu romantis dibuat-buat kayak sinetron, not my style lah pokoknya. Walaupun sebenarnya aku sendiri sebagai orang yang suka baca buku, sudah tahu tentang Dilan sejak lama, banyak yang bilang bukunya bagus. Penasaran sih, tapi nggak yakin jadi selalu memilih untuk beli buku yang lain, pilih pinjam aja kalau ada yang punya hehehe. Sampai akhirnya buku ini dibuat film, aku belum baca bukunya.

Sebulan setelah film tersebut rilis, demam Dilan sudah mulai reda, dan akhirnya aku nemu orang yang punya buku ini! Dia salah satu teman kuliah(Ufi) yang kebetulan memang suka karya Pidi Baiq (she wrote her review about Dilan too! check it out here). Aku sendiri pernah pinjem Drunken Monster tapi baru baca sekilas soalnya bingung sama bahasanya hehe. Atau emang waktu itu lagi nggak mood baca ya? Pokoknya pada akhirnya baca sekilas doang nggak sempet dipahami lebih jauh haha.

Bumpy Journeys

Hi. This blog is dedicated for me to write about my bumpy life stories because like what everyone know life is never flat. Well my life is not that spectacular or flat but kinda bumpy. no life has no problem, right? because every human has emotion. It could be about love, friendship, family thingy, work thingy, etc. But, how hard your life is don’t forget to smile and spare your time to give some happiness to yourself so your emotion would be balanced. Cheers! 🙂