The Forever Unfitting

Once somebody starts traveling around the globe, the bug stays and the person is infected for life. It becomes a terminal condition that has no cure. Not only that, there are also some side effects and issues that emerge from the whole experience. Anyone who's been away from home for a significant amount of time, would enter a period of confusion and unsettledness upon returning. You begin to question your notion of home. And where home really is.

I have that disease. And I may have contracted the forever unfitting disease. I'll constantly feel like floating between places, traddling for solid ground. It's a curse.

In My Place

After a week of never ending bliss of rekindled friendship and many good nights out, things are beginning to settle down a little in Melbourne. Things will pick up again, I'm sure .. but for now, I have some time for myself to do some thinking about the recent events. It is the beginning of summer in Melbourne and the arrival of sun has always been welcomed with excitements from everyone. There are more colours in the street, from people's wardrobe, to the way the sun hits windows and the green grass. The warmer weather is reflected in the warmth of people as well. And that must have been the point when I fell in love with Melbourne all over again. I could get used to all of this again. I could live here again. I could be happy amongst old friends, and making new friends along the way. Easy.

Which brings me to the question: How are you supposed to know where you're supposed to be?

Jakarta is not too bad of a place. Like any other city in the world, you can easily find good and bad things combined -- more bad than good maybe, but at the end of the day it's all a matter of attitude and choice. It is how you choose to view this place that you live in, and like anything that has got anything to do with love.. you choose who you love and accept it for what it is. But when something better presents itself to you, what do you do?

Sass & Bide Sale

For those who are well into their brand, the name of Sass and Bide would be of no surprise to you. They make great pairs of jeans! I kid you not. I'm sure many other girls would testify on the difficulty of finding the perfect one, and therefore a girl can't have too many jeans. Never. Especially if you're one like moi, who lives and breathes in jeans. Needless to say, a few days ago was the Warehouse Sale of Sass& Bide. From past experiences, warehouse sale never got me anything good so I wasn't too interested... but when my housemate asked me to accompany her, I gladly tag along.

Never before had I seen so many girls of different age, size, race, gathered in the one place. At one point, the queue to enter the warehouse sale was as long as the next block. It was insane! And if I thought that was insane, try being inside. It was an easy 500 girls if not more. There ware queues everywhere; to the changing room, to pay at the cashier. It was sheer madness.

I got home thinking about what is it about Sass & Bide, or great pair of jeans or a warehouse sale that drives everyone to be there. We have developed an image culture so strong that created the hype of what looks good and what does not look good. Finding the perfect pair of jeans is never an easy task, but the perfect pair of jeans does not have to be a certain international brand. It doesn't have to be $500 worth. It may not be Sass & Bide. But when all one reads in a magazine is how great these things are, maybe we secretly want to believe that if we have one of those, we'd look equally beautiful and irresistable. That we'd belong to the cult of cool fashionistas.

Girls, girls, girls,... Just get on a pair that will make your arse look good and I think irressistability is yours!

Many Nights Out

I arrived in Melbourne under the impression that everyone will be very busy with work and their daily activities that I'm going to have lots of free time on my own. Amazingly enough, it didn't turn out the way I planned. It's been nearly a week and I have been out every single night. Crazy. Fun. I thank my lovely friends for that.

On Saturday night I caught up with some friends from RMIT's student theatre company Performit. We met at the Prince of Wales in St.Kilda and then had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant called Soul Mama. Sould Mama is buzzing with people. It's a happening place with bistro type of service. You are charged by the size of your plate, medium allows you rice with 4 choice of dishes, large gives you rice with 5 choice of dishes. Not only that, you are given the option of eating it from the tin tray or the porcelain plate. Ultra cool. It was a night of good conversation and stories and relishing old friendships. 5 years have gone passed but the bond between us remains, and we just slide back to how things were. After dinner, some went away and the rest of us continued on to have drinks at the Espy.

Close to midnight, Kayin, Lily and I made my way to Abode - Melbourne's infamous club for an experience. Stories about my amazing night will be published in the first edition of MAXIM Indonesia. I promise not to ruin it for you, or for the magazine for that matter...

What follows on the nights after that, were simply many nights out with friends. It is strange to feel as if I'm living here again. Or that somehow, there are many of us who are in the same cross roads after much traveling and working in the last 5 years. We have matured. But remained the good friends as we were.

Home Sweet Home

In the midst of all the excitement of going to Melbourne and finally meeting people I have not seen in years, something strange happened. As the plane descended over the clear Melbourne morning, I felt nothing. I thought there would be something like joy, or excitement, or anxiety, or longing. But I felt nothing. I couldn't figure it out until lunch time that very day.

As the car that brought me to my old apartment passed through familiar streets, I was amazed of how much things stayed the same. I recognised the same cafes I used to hang out with. On how the bar that I had my going away party expanded to take over the shop next to it. On how nothing in the apartment really changed other than the additional stuff filling up the place. It is very nice to see that instead of things changing, it was more of things adding up, expanding, creating new spaces and new experiences without losing the old one.

It is exactly why I felt nothing. It feels like coming home. And home is never a big thing. It is something you hold dear in your heart and no matter how long you've been away from it, you'll slide back in to it as if you never left.

Home Sweet Home.