welcome autumn...

Autumn (or preferably called Fall by Americans) is officially here, but I haven't felt a bit of the weather change here.

It still feels pretty much like summer, all the windy stuff and not so chilly air (except in the evening). I just tuned my self at the weather forecast on TV and when the weather man said "It's the last day of summer." I just put my trust in him.

Anyway, not so much to tell these days. Well actually there are quite many to tell, especially regarding my activities prior to the beginning of college days. I did go to this mischievous kind of place called Mystery Spot, but I'm going to tell you that later.

Speaking of fall, I have something important to tell you dear readers:

SCHOOL COLLEGE OFFICIALLY STARTED THIS WEEK

You know what that means. All the assignments have been waiting to be finished, and they have piled up since the first day of college. I know as days go on, the pile will only but grow thicker and thicker until I have no idea where else to put them.
Even I just finished doing my math homework halfway. It is halfway but at least I'm satisfied how I could set a target of finishing a bunch of homework but not doing it in a whole, but in parts. So part 1 of my overall 60something problems is done!

Here's my timetable schedule if you want to take a look
Also, I'm doing this to test my mac's screencapping ability

It looks very small I know, but at least you get that I have three classes. I'm not going to put ONLY since they're not ONLY three classes. You may say "Well, it's a good thing for you to have only three classes cos I have more than them."

The thing is, yes, I have - what you said with 'only' - three classes but in return, I have homeworks twice the amount of the classes I'm currently enrolled in.

One thing you should keep in mind that college ain't like school, especially when you go to the one not in your country. All the system and schooling system are completely different in Indonesia, especially when students here are given the liberty to choose their own classes not depending on levels or grades. So it's possible (not possible, but it DOES happen to me for real) if a freshman like me can get into the same class with sophomores, as in people who are much smarter than me.

Don't let me blabber all night long here. It sucks when I do -__-.
Okay it's already late at night here and I gotta go to sleep. Catch y'all later :D

cooling our heads

Okay, this story is a bit out of date, but I decided to just post it here since it's too hard to forget.
On late August (don't remember the exact date) I was invited by a friend of mine who comes from China, to attend a fellowship event. Elda and I also joined in the trip, with a little confidence and was quite assured that the whole event would be conducted in Chinese, since most of the participants come from Chinese speaking countries.

So here goes the event. It started with a visit to Santa Cruz. We carpooled from DeAnza college to Los Gatos first, stopping by a decent house to have a glass of orange juice, then went straight to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz might not sound that strange to me, but the thing is, I had exactly no idea where that was, whether it was close or not to Cupertino.
Anyway, it was a good place though. In fact, a fascinating one. I've never been to any beaches in America not until that visit. Obviously it look different from Indonesian beaches, especially minus the seaside-counters-and-sellers part.

I met some new friends! Terri, my Japanese-born friend, and Sierra, who comes from Hong Kong

We had a group picture together. Can you spot me there?

Then we had a beach walk on our own. I felt like wearing the wrong dress-code (gah, there's no dress code by the way) since I attended the outing wearing a semi-formal checkered outfit, jeans, and sneakers, without knowing that we were actually going to the beach ><. If only I had found out, then I would probably wear shorts, Tshirt, and a pair of sandals.
The water was freakishly cold! In contrast of the hot weather and burning sand! So you can imagine me running confidently into the water then practically flinched when the water met my feet.













By seeing the pictures above, at least you get the picture of referred beach I'm talking about.
Right after a beach walk, we happened to spot that the beach itself was connected to a nearby small theme park called Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Before entering the theme park from the beach, we had to pass like rows of shop. Nothing interested me though, so I just kept on moving.

Anyway, I thought this theme park required every of its visitor to pay for the admission fee, but turned the entrance didn't have any ticket boxes so visitors could roam freely inside the theme park. BUT there was actually one ticket box in the middle of the theme park. So it turned out that we did have to pay for $3.00 or $4.00 per ride. We didn't need to ride all of rides though, but if we wished too, just go to the ticket box and requested your desired ride. The lady would hand you the ticket after you pay.

Piece of cake huh?







Doris was ecstatic about riding on some rides, but maybe one ride is enough since our time being in the theme park was obviously limited. Actually Doris was excited about riding on this pendulum-like ride, but she hesitated to go on her own (since all of us had this gut to ride the ride along with her). So we switched to another not-so-gentler ride which is Speed bump (boom boom car)



After spending quality yet fun time at Santa Cruz, we headed back to Los Gatos for barbecue time. Anyway before having dinner, we had some games to break the ice. The game was a bit hilarious but it kind of challenged the heck out of our memories to memorize everyone's name there.



After the game, we had a dinner. The host was kind enough to provide food ranging from spaghetti, chicken, to sushi. What a comforting yet warm food in the contrary of the cold weather and the blowing wind. The rest of the night was spent with some more games but this time, it was conducted fully in Chinese, so there was no way I could join in.







Spent the rest of the night watching religious videos in the living room and the goals of the organization. The host also thanked for us all for coming to her house though



An impressive night indeed. Got to make some new friends and joined in the game. The valuable lesson that I got to learn is that that language isn't the barrier of communication. I can hardly speak Chinese but some of those games don't really require language as two-way communication, only with gestures and laughter.

Phiew, that was one quite long post. Have a great day!

to anyone

They're back!!!
I'm sooo ecstatic. 2ne1 is frankly one of my most favorite Korean girl groups aside of SNSD and f(x). I think they did quite a great job with their first album, featuring "Fire" and "I Don't Care". Those songs were real HITS!
Who didn't get addicted with "I Don't Care"? Even that was my dad's most favorite Kpop song. (look who's being random)

Anyway, these girls' images haven't changed much since their first albums' concept. Maybe they slightly changed, into what's called with a more daring and punk-ish style.

(Phiew, finally a post that has something to do with Kpop)

A WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL!!

Just a week before school, but I already purchased all of my textbooks! I've shown you guys my Intermediate Algebra one which is freaking thick!

Lately I got two other textbooks for my English class which are much thicker and cheaper. Good thing, cos it'd be easier to carry them around.

Reminds me that I need to read them before school starts. Previewing, as you can tell.

Anyway, it also came to my realization that I lacked of nice casual clothes for college. Most of my clothes are dominated with white, and that's too monotone.
You wouldn't go to the campus everyday wearing the same color shirt would you?

So I was planning to buy (not shop) for some casual yet colorful shirts and coincidentally, my friends (Patricia and Astha) sort of asked me and Elda to hang out to the nearby shopping mall to just have lunch.
There was an impressive moment during lunch though. Patricia, who's also from Indonesia, happened to randomly asked Astha who comes from India about Hindi culture. We ended up talking about Hindi movies and the culture. Interestingly though, we also learned a bit of Hindi language, stuff like Namaste.

At the same time, the Asian lady happened to sit next to our table turned out to be an Indonesian and had a nice short talk with us. Apparently she comes from Central Java and had a pretty Javanese accent (how I miss hearing that accent). Her American husband suddenly popped out and greeted us with an "Apa kabar?".
It was sooo awkward that there was a short pause before we responded him. Isn't it interesting and surprising at the same time when you discover an American's able to speak your mother language?

After lunch, we moved to another mall located quite far from Cupertino and it's in Milpitas. To get there, we had to take a bus ride to Santa Clara, then switched to riding Light Rail (the so-called monorail you saw in my San Jose post eventually turned out to be referred as Light Rail instead of just monorail).

The second mall we happened to visit had cheaper stores. Elda, Patricia, and Astha were kind enough to help me look for some decent shirts.

On the way back to our apartments in the bus, Elda happened to hear two girls and one boy sitting behind her speaking Japanese. Then one of the girls and the boy got off, and there left the last girl on her own. Suddenly, the next thing I saw was Elda was already having a warm talk with that girl. I even heard some of Japanese words I happened to recognize, like "ima" which means "now" and "iru" which means "there/exist".

Everything seemed to go very fast and that the next thing I remembered, after Patricia (who sat next to me at that moment on the bus) got off, the Japanese girl gestured for me to sit next to her.

Here are some of the memorable quotes I was having with Ai-san (her name)

Me: Anata no namae wa nan desuka? (Trans: What's your name?)
Ai: Ai. (Then she sort of spoke "And you?" in Japanese. Forgot the words)
Me: Carissa. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! (Trans: Nice to meet you!)

To which she responded with a laughter. She kept complimenting us how our Japanese was good despite of us being beginners (no, ME being a beginner. Elda has learned a lot of Japanese through its dramas. So consider her more as an intermediate).

I tried to recall all Japanese phrases I've learned at high school. But using them to speak with a real Japanese person seems harder than talking with your own teacher.

FYI, this is my first time speaking Japanese to a real Japanese person. You can imagine the whole awkwardness and stuff.

Me: What school do you go to go? Are you a DeAnza student? (I don't know the Japanese words for this. Probably stuff like "Anata no gakko wa nan desuka?)
Ai: No, I go to San Jose State University. (her Japanese accent is soo kawaii!)
Me: Ah... *pauses* sugoi! (Trans: good!)

Ai mentioned that she was really happy to finally meet someone who could speak Japanese, because she hadn't met strangers (non-Japanese) who could. I guess that day was her lucky day? Anyway Elda continued speaking random things in Japanese about dramas and we ended up talking about Arashi (a Japanese boyband) on the rest of our bus ride.

We felt all saddened when we came to our stop and that we had to part. But Elda had asked her email already and Ai said that she was going back to Japan in a week.
Safe trip, Ai!

That day was a bit multicultural-ish. It started with us learning some Hindi words, met a Javanese born lady, and ended with a sweet conversation with a Japanese student. :)

-----------------------------------------------

Yesterday was a bit exhausting, but it was really worth it since I finally got to find good yet cheap shirts. Not that cheap but at least reasonable (yep, that's exactly the word).

Yet today I hung out with Patricia and this time with some of my other friends like Rebecca, Angie, and Amira. Good thing that today, we got to watch Going the Distance.

That's like one of the not-so anticipated movies for me, but it turned out to be quite hilarious! I can tolerate the cursing, dirty jokes, and whatsoever, but Drew Barrymore looked fantastic there. It's not a surprise anymore that her costar in the movie, Justin Long, IS indeed her real life boyfriend. That's one pretty interesting fact about the movie.

Movie time was over, but sadly there wasn't plenty of thing to see in the mall where the cinema was located, so we decided to go to Santana Row instead to take a look around.

Patricia happened to spot this CHILI restaurant where we munched on our afternoon snacks.

Cheese fries
I'm a fan of french fries but this is my first time trying a cheese-smeared fries.
Cheese is also one of my favorite side dish. So you can imagine...
French fries + cheese = perfection!

Love the jalapenos too.
Anyway I think it's spelled "halapenyos"


Chicken Crisper
You need some sort of thin bread (don't know how to call that in English) to wrap these chickens. Then you eat it the way you eat a hotdog


The side dish. :p


Chocolate Molten for dessert!
A combination of heated chocolate cake and a vanilla ice cream underneath the dome-shaped chocolate.
I luuurrrrveee chocolate so much!
This is probably my most favorite chocolate cake I've ever eaten. Yum yum.

Speaking of chocolate, I'm planning to make some experiments on chocolate later on. Lately I've been into cooking pretty much, mixing random spices, garnishing onions, garlic, pepper, and salt.
But the result's not pretty bad. I used to cook when I was little though, but then I always puked everything that I cooked, so that's why I stopped cooking until I moved to the US, where the situation forced me to resume cooking.

Cooking's been pretty much my current hobby aside of writing these days, and especially after I'm forced to temporarily skip my two favorite hobbies after moving in to the USA: photoshopping (I haven't installed it on my mac yet T_T) and playing violin (just broke its E string and changed it immediately, but considering that I live in an apartment, I can't do that freely. Unless you want a neighbor to actually knock on your door and ask you to shut up).

Anyway, back to cooking. So yeah, so far I've cooked random things without the help of recipe at all. I've been applying "Ratatouille" concept of "Anyone can cook". Maybe next time I'll post some of the food that I got to cook here.

It's been a long post. See you very soon!

SCHOOL STARTS IN A WEEK!!! ARRRGGGHHHH

tumblr.

Hey guys!

I'm on Tumblr now, but it doesn't mean I ditch this blog over it.
Still love blogging though, it's just that people've been talking about this Tumblr site these days and turns out it's quite efficient if you wanted to post just some pictures of quotes instead of long bunch of text..

So without further ado, I present you my newly activated Tumblr blog:

carissaatrianty.tumblr.com

Hope you enjoy it!
Be warned that you won't find any long texts or any kinds of writing there. All stories and experiences featuring pictures go to this Blogger blog.

where the MOSQUE is

x x where the MOSQUE is x x
two girls in the search of worship houses
being lost, disoriented, ached-feet,
onlywith the help of google maps on their hands
-------------------------------

ATTENTION!
This post is writings-heavy. If you can't stand reading a great deal of text, you can simply skip this post and wait till I post a new one.
Be careful not to get disoriented with places' names and buses' numbers in this post, if you determine to read it.

-------------------------------

Sadly no pictures in this post. *story mode on*

As you know, Lebaran is exactly today in the US, but I strangely feel none of its vibes at all. Well, it comes to my realization that I'm currently living in a land where Moslem isn't considered a major population, unlike my home country.

It's kind of sad to know that I'll be celebrating Lebaran all by myself. Not entirely though, since I've still got my friend Elda who doesn't stop cheering me up with her jokes. Most of my friends here don't celebrate the occasion. Actually, there's one who does, but she's off to San Francisco to attend a small Lebaran celebration with her high school friends or something like that.

So if you don't really know what I'm talking about, then try to imagine if you were abroad and you weren't able to go home and celebrate Christmas with your family, missing the chance to do the yearly Christmas tradition with your family, setting up the Christmas tree, visiting your families, and having guests coming over to munch on your cookies.

However though if that was the matter, then it wouldn't be a problem at all, since people here DO celebrate Christmas and even if you can't go home to your home country, you still have your friends to go to the Church with. And sure, you'll likely to feel the strong Christmas vibe here.

Anyway, just the day before Lebaran, Elda and I took off from our apartment at 12pm to search for a mosque where I'll be most likely doing my Lebaran prayer there. With the help of Google maps installed in my phone, luckily I got to locate the nearby mosques around the area. The closest one is located in Campbell and we only needed just two bus rides to get there.

Thus, our adventure began...
We took off from our apartment (felt like saying this over again), took the 23 bus to Valley Fair mall transit center and got off there to switch to the 60 bus. We waited quite a while there, chatted in our mother language until a lady sitting behind us asked.

"What language are you guys speaking?"

I thought, well, it wasn't a strange question since our language might sound a little different than any other languages an American ever hears. We told her we spoke in Bahasa Indonesia, which could actually be compared to Spanish, since some words might sound similar (even the word GRATIS in Spanish also means FREE in Indonesian. Therefore it's safe to say that GRATIS is the word for free in both Spanish and Indonesian. Wow, just figured it out yesterday)

Back to the topic, the lady also mentioned that she loved our language because it sounded so soothing and that she was fascinated by it. Wow, her words kind of hit me and remind me how Indonesians nowadays prefer to speak in slangs and even some prefer to add some English words to their Indonesian sentences, and even try to speak in an exagerrated American tone (sounds like I'm talking about a popular Indonesian teen star who does stuff like this).

Again, though, the lady's words sort of remind me that Indonesians should be proud of their language. What a valuable lesson learned in the bus stop. Thanks ma'am!

Her bus came and she took off, and not long after that, ours came and we were sure that we got on the right bus (as that's the bus the Google Maps told us to take). After a while though I started to feel that we were heading to the wrong direction: the bus headed north, meanwhile the direction in the Google Maps told us that the bus was supposed to head south instead.

Thus, we got off the bus, went to a nearby bus stop, and headed to the opposite direction.
Things went smoothly since then, and we got off on the right intersection. Next up, the Google maps told us to walk through a residential area, which was a long way to go, until we met an expressway in the other side. Just across the expressway was a small house with quite a huge sign in front of it, written in Arabic words. That was enough to indicate that it was a mosque.

Strangely though, it didn't entirely look like a real mosque, or a mosque like what I've imagined it to look like. The fact that it was small, locked, and that no one seemed to reside that place sort of convinced me that it was closed. There was even a notification written in Arabic writing (once again) that I couldn't read. Somehow my heart at that moment screamed for my Literature and Arabic writing teacher to help me out, which is impossible of course.

(I hate the fact that my Arabic skill is very low).

After knocking the door and no response, I told Elda that there was no hope that someone would open it up. So we took off from there, and got back to the bus stop where we got off earlier. Before that, Elda also did a quick survey on a nearby Catholic church where I discovered that "Gratis" (the Indonesian word for "Free") also means "Free" in Spanish through a brochure. Then, we had a quick lunch of Hot Dog from 7 Eleven.

Our bus came afterwards and Elda said that if there was another mosque we could go to, then we still could make it there since we had plenty of time.

Anyway though, I told Elda that there was another one in Saratoga. My friend who went to San Francisco also told me that the mosque she knew was in Saratoga but she'd never been there. To get there, we needed to go to DeAnza College (our college) then take a 53 bus heading to Saratoga). We thought that to go to DeAnza College from Campbell region, we needed to take a bus back to the mall's transit center, and switch the bus to DeAnza College.

But coincidentally though, on the way back to the transit center using the 60 bus, Elda happened to spot what-supposedly-looked-like-a-piano-school in one side of the road. We got off there and found out that it wasn't a piano school, but only a place that sold pianos. Then, we spotted a 25 bus that headed to the opposite direction (back to where we came from) and written on it was "DeAnza College", meaning the college was its last stop.

So we got on that bus and it was pretty a long way to go, since we didn't take the original route passing the Valley Fair mall transit center, the bus took another route passing the downtown of Campbell. I slept on the bus so I didn't really notice which roads we happened to pass.

Elda woke me up later on and told me we should get off pretty soon since it was approaching the college already. We didn't get off exactly at the college's bus stop, but at a bus stop in front of the campus grounds as the Google map told us to.

I got a bit disoriented since the part of the campus didn't look familiar at all. I recognized a bus stop in front of the campus grounds, but not this one. The road and even the college entrance looked different. Reality hit me, and turned out we got off on the other side of the college entrance. The Google Map said that we got off on the right place though and that we needed to take a 53 bus to get to Saratoga. So no need to doubt anymore.

We went to a nearby bus stop to wait for the bus heading to Saratoga. After a while of waiting (and a moment of listening to instrumental music in the midst of quietness around us using Elda's phone), the bus arrived. But that one wasn't 53 (apparently, the bus stop was meant for three buses: 53, 25, and 55). After a long wait and after many 55 buses and 25 buses passing, finally the expected 53 came. Thus, we got on.

Approaching the intersection where we were supposed to get off, "Our Location" point on Elda's Google map said that we already passed the meant intersection. But I thought her Google map wasn't working because it happened to my Google map as well (sometimes, "Our Location" doesn't locate our exact location on Google map, so that's one minus point of using the application). But then, Elda started to doubt and suggested we should get off since "Our Location" point started to move away from the intersection displayed on the map.

Thus, we got off and headed to the intersection, which was a long way to go. Apparently, we've skipped it pretty far from our bus stop. It was a long walk from the bus stop to get to the mosque. But the Google map said that it was located right on the side of the street, so no need to doubt about its location anymore.

After arriving at the meant place, where "Our Location" point was exactly near the mosque on the Google map, we looked around and saw no signs of mosque at all. I even tried to make sure that the mosque was on the right side of the street as said by the application, but the meant place turned out to be only rows of closed shops. We walked around but the mosque point on the Google map still pointed at the same place.

So I came up with a conclusion that perhaps, the mosque itself wasn't exactly a mosque as in a vivid building. The name of the mosque as implied by the application itself said that it wasn't exactly a mosque, but an association. Probably it was an organization that frequently moved its meeting from one place to another. Strange.

From there, we decided to end our search and went to our original schedule of the day: Going to Lion Food Center to do a weekly shopping. The meant Lion Food Center was located at Kiely Boulevard, that's near Stevens Creek Boulevard, close to our apartment (our apartment was at Stevens Creek Boulevard).
So it means, we're heading back home.

My phone's battery was almost empty so I was sure there was no way I could access my Google map and decided to count on Elda's from then on.

She said. "We should catch a 26 bus to get to Lion Food Center. Only one bus ride. But to get to the 26 bus stop, we must walk quite far from this place."

I thought maybe we could wait for the 53 bus heading to the other direction until we got to the 26 bus stop. But Elda said it would waste a heap of time waiting for such a rare bus to come. So it'd be better if we walked. So, we decided to just walk on foot to get to the not-so-near 26 bus stop, even passing non-pedestrian sidewalk (where - literally - there's no sidewalk) and a bridge over a highway, we made it to the 26 bus stop. FINALLY.

The sun was setting so we started to fear about the place around us, because just behind the bus stop bench were likely bushes. The place wasn't so familiar either so it was better if we increased our awareness towards our surroundings, especially if it was already dark. Thankfully, the 26 bus was seen turning towards us at the intersection and we felt safe. Just before the sun set.

It was probably the longest bus ride of the day and my feet already ached like heck. It came to my realization that we were passing some places that looked very much different. Even stretching before us as the bus was passing, were rolling hills that reflected the sun, making them to look reddish and yet they looked just breathtaking, but still I felt kind of strange of this place.

I was like "Wait a minute, we're heading to Lion Food Center in Cupertino right? The one at Kiely Boulevard? Near Stevens Creek? So we're going on the way home right? How come I've never seen these hills on the way home?"

Elda convinced that yes, we were going back to Cupertino, it's just we were passing some foreign places we'd never been to (I was convinced we might take another route), so that's why our surroundings looked extremely different.

We got off at Tully and King intersection (an intersection I've never heard before yet sounded so unfamiliar), and the Food Center was located exactly at one side of the intersection. The sun almost set and the wind started to blow even harder than before since it was almost evening.

Then Elda doubtly uttered. "Why does THIS Lion Food center look different?"

I've been to Lion Food Center at Kiely Boulevard (the one we meant to go to) and it had a Burger king resto at its parking lot, but this Lion Food Center we happened to stumble upon, didn't have any Burger King restos.
I thought that maybe we came from the opposite direction which we had never been to, so maybe the entrance looked a little different than the entrance we happened to know.

Elda's doubt rose since then and she profusely checked her Google map, only to find out that WE WERE NOT IN THE MEANT SUPERMARKET IN CUPERTINO.
However though, Elda still couldn't discover where we were, if we turned out to be not in Cupertino. Or maybe, we were too afraid to find out exactly where we were (maybe we already passed beyond San Jose region. Geez)

"We've gone all the way to this place, so let's just go shopping in this food center." I suggested.
So we got inside before we got frostbitten for standing outside for so long. We shopped there for quite a while and got everything we wanted. It's pretty worth it!

The sky was already dark as we got outside and Elda's phone's battery was on the verge of getting drained (don't ask about mine. it's dead already). But Elda quickly found which bus to take to get back home. She said we should take a 22 bus to Alum Rock Transit Center to switch to the 23 bus heading to DeAnza College (the first bus we rode today to Valley Fair transit center).
We caught the bus after running towards it right after we got out of the supermarket. Good thing we didn't need to wait for the bus to come this time.

It came to my mind that Alum Rock Transit Center was actually the first stop to get to DeAnza college. We've got on the bus heading to Alum Rock Transit Center before, but the furthest we could go to that time was to Downtown San Jose and it was ALREADY FAR from our apartment.
I wondered if Alum Rock WAS even further than downtown San Jose, since it was the first stop.

Anyway, we reached the intersection of Alum Rock and King, somewhere between San Jose and Santa Clara and waited for the 23 bus heading to DeAnza college in the same bus stop. The bus stop didn't look so convincing at all, since it was dark and the bus stop itself had no lighting at all. I've heard of crime stories spread all over the states and started to rise my awareness towards my surroundings, and hoped that the bus would soon come.

The 23 bus was later seen to be turning to our direction at the intersection, and at once, we felt very safe. We got on and exhaled deeply for this was our last bus of the day. Ever. The distance between Alum Rock and the so-called downtown where we got off the other day was quite far.
So it was obvious that we'd gone all the way to the last stop and had to make it back to our apartment. That was going to be another long way to go back home.

We even passed Santa Clara and the downtown of San Jose and it did look beautiful in the night, with lights and all of the city-ish atmosphere unlike in Cupertino. We only got the glimpse of the downtown in the midday and it was quiet.

Approximately at 9.30 pm, we made it back to the apartment safely. This is probably the latest we ever got home at night, and we realized it all happened extremely unexpectedly. It started with a search of a mosque but ended up an adventure around Campbell, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Santa Clara, and back to Cupertino again.
Wow, explored more than five cities in a day in 9 hours nonstop.

I might as well make a book about this, but I think a post this long is enough. Phiew. Took quite a long time. My fingers need some rest too.

Picture credit to: ~TeenagePolitics

back to fitri

It's September 10 here, Pacific Time
So I guess now is the right time to say to all of my Moslem friends


SELAMAT HARI RAYA IDUL FITRI
1 Syawal 1431 H

Minal aidzin wal fa idzin
Mohon maaf lahir dan batin
______________________________________

Please do forgive all of my mistakes, dear friends
Gotta start a brand new beginning from today

peace out =)

holly molly

I'm skype-ing with my mom right now. She has no idea that actually I'm doing that while blogging at the same time.
It's officially the second week of my holiday period and started to get busy with school stuff (ugh, here we go again). Yesterday's labor day was so-so. I went to campus to pay for the tuition without realizing that labor day was actually (here) considered a holiday. Stupid me -___-

But yesterday, I'm glad I could finish up all college matters, from tuition payment, appointment with the counselor, to books purchasing.

Of all total three books that I needed to purchase, here's the one I got for today since the other two weren't available.

INTERMEDIATE ALGEBRA, PPL!

From the first time I got the book in my hand (geez, it was darn heavy), I wondered if maybe I took the wrong book. It was more like a dictionary instead of the everyday-math-book! Wow, I guess I've to let go of high school life. College life IS pretty much more different.
Even worse, I can't stand the extremely unreasonable price (veeeerrry pricey!! You would think that that's the most expensive book you've ever heard)
Definitely the most expensive book I've ever purchased as well, and the fact that actually I spent that much money to buy the book of my most disliked subject. Ew.

In the mean time, I'm becoming quite an avid fan of selca (self-taken pictures). Thanks to Photo Booth application though.

Here are some other few shots. Out of many effects the application offers, apparently only four of them succeeded to attract me.

Plenty of things to do for the next days. There might be some plans with my friends. We're planning to attend some activities and events, and as for leisure activities, maybe we'll just hang out to the closest shopping center, kill time by watching movies at the theatres, going to nearby theme park, or go to places like San Jose or San Francisco (again).

I'm still hoping I could go to Los Angeles in this short distance. I long for big cities, tall buildings, bunch of cars lining up (the one that you call traffic jam. Oh shiz, why am I saying bad stuff like this?)

back again, in the midst of boredom

Another visit to San Jose!
Just a few days ago, Elda and I took off to visit our neighboring city again. This time though, we were then able to visit the places we intended to go to but closed the other day. The visits were fascinating!

Elda has always wanted to go to the Museum of Art and Tech Museum located at the downtown. Since we arrived at the city earlier than the other day, we finally got the chance to visit them.

The museum was mainly packed with contemporary arts instead of classic fine art like paintings and such. It was rather surprising to see almost all kinds of art displayed in the museum. Not just some abstract paintings but also photography, videos, short movies, paper arts, and arts involving the tricks of lights and electricity, just like what Leo Villareal's exhibits offer.
There were two exciting exhibits that entertained us the most which are a video of an Inca boy doing the cover of 'The Sounds of Music' in a meadow and a group of Taiwanese youths doing the cover of Michael Jackson's Bad.

The whole exhibits of the museums were definitely breathtaking.
They'll give you this impression that this museum ain't like any other art museums you'll find in this world.

Next up, we headed straight to the Tech Museum, but before reaching the place, we stopped for a minute or two in the park, just to snap some pictures.

I didn't expect this picture above to look good.
Love the blurry effect but believe it or not, this was made out of a coincidence (the wind was blowing and it sort of chilled me). So before finishing the shoot, I swung my camera while pressing the capture button, capturing this scene and I said "Shoot!" at the same time. So guess, this picture would be best if it's called "SHOOT!" lol

For me, San Jose is like the mini version of San Francisco. Of course those two cities don't bear any similarities in look nor situations since San Francisco is surely a much bigger and more recognizable city compared to San Jose.

Onto the next destination: The Tech Museum!

The museum itself basically is just like any other science centers, filled with unique kinds of scientific yet interactive exhibits. There was this interactive exhibit that offered the ability for visitors to compose a song using numbers.
Elda and I tried it and actually, it was quite easy to do that. All of you have to do is just pressing random buttons containing numbers and just press play. The result will come out as the sound of piano. We could also set the tempo as we wanted to.

So it turned out we randomly and quickly pressed all buttons and set the tempo to the maximum, then press 'play'

The result was incredibly hilarious.
Haha. Have no idea how to interpret that hilarity on this blog, but try to imagine that.



We only had like an hour in the museum before it closed (the ticketing person told us that though, and doubt if we still determined to have a tour around the museum that long) so right at the hour where it's supposed to be closed, Elda and I exited quickly. Later on, we found this outdoor exhibit at the back of the museum, displaying ball that went through paths and moved by physical elements.

I promised once that I'd take a picture of the city's monorail, didn't I?
Good thing in this visit, I got to have my camera ready while standing before the rail and waiting for the vehicle to pass by.







On the way home, we strangely spotted thin clouds hung in the sky (yes, even if there's a cloud in the oh-so-shiny days could be something amazing, since it hardly happens. The summer sky would be normally pure blue sky and it's cloudless).

Anyway, I'm still finding out if Mac has a Wordpad program, since it's more comfortable to blog with Wordpad and that it's copyable to Blogger rather than using Microsoft Word.