2010, I already love you

Happy New Year!

This year is gonna be awesome, and I'm only just talking about the movies that are coming out that I really want to see.

Clash of the Titans

Greek mythologies and Sam Worthington. Enough said.

Iron Man 2

He had me at "I've successfully privatised world peace." Already a favourite quote for 2010.

Salt

Has the 3 quintessential ingredients in a classic action movie: stolen identity, secret service agent and neat self-defence tricks.

Dear John

Wanna see this purely because Lasse Hallstrom directs it. He is probably one of the few directors that did justice to the film version of a good book with "Chocolat".

It's Complicated

Meryl Streep. Need I say more?

Busybody

Happy X'mas!

For some reason, Christmas has always been a bit of a bittersweet time of the year for me. For quite some time, I couldn't exactly say why. It should always mean happy times with the family and fun, relaxing holiday. So I didn't know where the negativity came from; I just always felt down a little when the end of the year rolled in.

And then I figured it out: apart from the fact that my family will always seem to clash when they spend too much time together (it's unavoidable in every family, I've come to terms with that), but at the same time, Christmas means holidays. And while a holiday seems like a great time, to me time off means uselessness and boredom. I just realised today - of all days - that ever since I started kindergarten, I would have something to look forward to and would have some sort of purpose. It never occured to me to take a year off after high school; I didn't even know what 'gap year' was until my first year at uni. And that too was the exact reason why I enrolled in postgrad right after I finished my undergrad, because I wasn't quite ready for workforce yet but I know I'd just go crazy if I didn't have anything to do. I was feeling a bit depressed in the past 6 months because when I'd finished that postgrad, I felt like I didn't have anything to give myself some meaning. And when this new job finally came along, I felt not good, but actually content. It's like I've got purpose again.

And so I think it's safe for me for now to just keep doing something and not stop. Especially since I still have the energy to do it. I might even like to add something else to this work, just so I get even busier, maybe like a language course or one of those magazine publishing courses I saw being offered in RMIT. And then other days I'll do my weekly exercises, like bikram yoga classes or swimming.

I'm just looking forward to being busy again.

2010

What I'm looking forward to next year:

o Finally starting on my path to becoming rich (a girl needs her diamonds and couture, you see)
o Having a daily routine
o FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa
o New job
o Using my Moleskine monthly diary 2010 (yes, that's acutely important to me)
o Actually having New Year's Day, Australia Day, Labour Day, Easter weekend, ANZAC Day, Queen's Birthday, Cup Day and Christmas Day off
o Finally getting that Mulberry Bayswater bag
o It's my year, The Year of the Tiger! (I don't know how that will affect me, but let's hope it'll bring good luck, unlike that stupid belief that your Chinese year is always gonna be a bad year for you)

Basically there's not that many, but I just feel like 2010 sounds like a nice, round group of numbers. It will be 10 years since I moved to Melbourne and I think I can safely say things are gonna be all right. Not perfect and completely blissful, just okay.

The downside to it all

Is it wrong to think that maybe this job isn't all it's cracked up to be?

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a fantastic opportunity. But I took it because of the convenience. It's good money, big company and basically just good old showy job. I think I'm the envy of my friends for having been accepted into this. But what about what I like right now?

Maybe it's just the case of me having done something so long that I think that's all I like. I mean, I graduated with a degree in media and I've always loved writing. So maybe I just haven't seen what's out there. Maybe there are other things I'm gonna like apart from media, and this job is gonna show me.

But if it's the other way around, then what? What if I've been at this job for a year and I realise I wanna do writing all along? Basically, I would've wasted a year when I could've spent the time working my way up in the magazine/publishing industry.

I just hope it won't be the second one. Because I'd hate to see the haters right.

Victory!

I got my first full-time corporate job today!

It feels soooooooooooooooooooooooo good!

I'm gonna go as far as saying I'm choosing career over anything else right now. I'm gonna work my ass off to be able to save enough to buy my own place in 3 years. Just you wait and see.

Being epiphaneous (no such word, I know. I just wanna be a smart-ass)

I'm back from a wonderful holiday in Singapore and my hometown Jakarta. I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do and didn't get to see all the people I wanted to see, but that's fine.

Somehow lately I had the epiphany about friendship. Maybe it's got something to do with the way holidays clear your head and all that giving your mind, body and soul a break shit-ass crap. But whatever. I feel like I should remind myself about these things so I can hopefully be a better person from this point on.

o Being open-minded about your friends is the best thing that anyone can do. You can't mould other people into the way you want them to be. Knowing the difference between telling them off when they're wrong and when they're plainly different than you want them to be is hard. But just by listening to the other side of the story and be fair is, I think, a good start.

o Going on holidays and getting away from your friends is actually necessary. Having other groups of friends helps too but actually not seeing them for a period of time is good. But yeah, of course if someone needs you, you're gonna be there.

o Drawing the line on friends that take advantage of you. Don't make too much effort when all they do is ask you for favours. Don't repeat that mistake more than twice. Or in my case, after the 15th time or something.

o Good: Making new friends for the sake of making new friends. Bad: getting bogged down with the 'hey, that guy is cute, I should start a conversation with him so I can make out with him by the end of the night' attitude. It'll only stress you out and end up not making that first move.

Okay, maybe that last part is more like a dating tip. Not that I'm eligible for giving out dating tips. But I guess I had that figured out just now. Pfft.

The ballad of the sorry

So I just heard more stories tonight about a certain unfortunate person. Let's just call him Sorry Ass.

To give a bit of a background story, this Sorry Ass tries to start a magazine. Let's just call this sorry creation Ass Wipe. He enlisted my help as the editor. I helped him in vain for 7 months before I realised he doesn't know shit about doing business in general. So I quit.

It's been 3 months now since then and Sorry Ass has found the guy who took over the editor job. Let's just call him Mo-Editor. One day, Mo-Editor and Sorry Ass were meeting a potential client to fund Ass Wipe. This forms case number 1.

The potential client asked Sorry Ass: "So why do you think I should place my ad in Ass Wipe? What good is it gonna do me?"

Sorry Ass answered nervously in broken English: "Ass Wipe is so good. It is very elite. The articles we carry are only about high-end luxury brands like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton..."

"Yeah, I know. But those are articles. You guys don't actually have ads by them," the potential client said.

Sorry Ass was desperate: "But Ass Wipe is even better than Harper's Bazaar!"

And with that, according to my source, the potential client pulled out of the deal.

Case number 2. Sorry Ass has this acute dislike for a certain media competitor. Let's just call it Toilet Paper. Toilet Paper is actually quite successful as a media brand, except that, well, it's made out of newspaper and so I think it's best used only for toilet business, just like Ass Wipe. Anyway, basically Sorry Ass hates Toilet Paper's editors with a passion and thinks that Ass Wipe is already better than Toilet Paper, even though Ass Wipe hasn't put out one issue yet.

And so Sorry Ass thinks whoever works with him on Ass Wipe absolutely cannot write for Toilet Paper. Which is exactly what Mo-Editor did. Now I don't know if Mo-Editor did it out of spite or if it was just purely coincidental. But basically Sorry Ass went nuts and told off Mo-Editor, saying that he couldn't write for any other media other than for Ass Wipe. Mo-Editor was said to be confused because in his contract with Ass Wipe, there was never any obligation to write only for Ass Wipe and not for other media.

Mo-Editor has been heard saying to his friend that he wants to quit Ass Wipe. Not one issue is out yet but two editors are already walking out of the project.

On to case number 3. Sorry Ass has just done the second dummy of the magazine and all he's got in it are articles which are poorly edited and 5 pages of copies from a dated LV catalogue. I am so sorry to admit that when I was still working with Sorry Ass, I tried to defend the first version of the dummy which looked a lot like this in front of my friends, saying that it was just a 'work in progress'. Now I've learnt my lesson and found that this is actually Sorry Ass' definition of Vogue, or in his words, Harper's Bazaar.

And the icing on top of the cake is case number 4: it's been almost a year since the idea to start Ass Wipe was thought up, but until now Sorry Ass hasn't even registered an Australian Business Number yet. The reason? Because Sorry Ass is the director of the Ass Wipe brand and so he can do whatever the hell he wants.

Including putting himself in jail if they find that he was practising business without licence.

I just love stories like these. I did say pointing out people's mistakes are useless, but this is more like knowing that at least there are people more unfortunate than us so we should be grateful with what we have.