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Thea May 21st, 2009

Reading this book, opens our insight that editing photos is very easy. My friend Angel, a co-founder of kutukutubuku.com elaborates all tips of editing photos “professionally” in her newest book.

The emergence of social networking like Facebook, Friendster, or FUPEI unconsciously awake our “narcissism” side. We want to publish the photos with unique appearance. Many people think that editing photos needs special skill with complicated software. But this book will give you how to do the trick.

In this book, Angel elaborates several free on-line softwares that are usually utillized to edit photos. You will know step by step of using the software and how to make the photo as unique as you want. Then you’ll find it’s easy. Moreover, Angel uses a non-formal language, makes us more enjoy reading it.

The book is simple, easy to understand, and the most important, the content is applicable.

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Thea May 19th, 2009

My birthday this year will be remembered in my life time. Not only because this is the first birthday as a wife and with my hubby near me, but also because I got the most precious birthday gift in my life.

I could see my baby’s heartbeat in my birthday. The length now reaches 1.5 cm. It is so unbelievable for me as there’s a small tiny creature inside my tummy. I never mind dealing with mild vomiting every time I have my meal. Everything I would do as long as it is for the healthy of my baby. Amazing!!

Being a pregnant woman is one of the step of my life and I am so happy that it doesn’t take a long time for us to have a baby. By Allah permission, within 7 months ahead, I will deliver my child and nurture him/her. Growing and nurturing them are not an easy job. Children are the divine gifts from God. We take the responsiblity of taking care of them, teaching them good values and fulfilling their soul with good virtues. We are the one who will be the role model and we can’t just behave as we like. Children will grow their respect to us and we as parents should feed their soul.

I learn a lot from my friends at office. Most of them are young couple with one or two children. Listening to their story teaches me so much thing. I can get the lesson learned and I wish I can apply to my children later.

Having a baby inside my tummy makes me enthusiastic. This baby really completes my life. I love u my lil sweet angel, even when you’re not born yet:-*

• Every Day Life
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Thea May 3rd, 2009

What a husband can do for his pregnant woman? Many things. I remind husbands everywhere just in case you read this blog, any kind of courage and support for your wife during her pregnancy, even it’s small thing, indeed very matters.

The support can be in many kind of forms. My hubby for example, he never forgets warning me to have milk intake three times a day, paying attention to my menu or reminding me if I have had the folat acid or not. He takes me to he office and picks me up when it;s already after hour. If we pass the “wavy” road, he always slows down the speed to minimize the shocking to my lower tummy, where our baby sleeps in.

When we are on bed , he talks to our baby because we believe that the communication link between us and the baby has existed. That just makes me happy to have supportive husband like him. Then, he always updates me with any kind of information about the pregancy. Pregancy sites now become his fave.

Ever since we knew that we’re going to have a baby, his attention to me has been dwendling. And that makes me very happy for any support from him is very important.

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Thea April 29th, 2009

Thing, sometimes, never goes easy when it comes to target and working under pressure. You are targeted, pushed to achieve certain goal, and assessed by quantity you compile within certain time line. It usually occurs in private sector, like in my company.

I feel it’s pretty much harder for me and my team when the goal is set by the high level management without compromising the condition in the “grass root”. In the name of company’s image, and many times bench marked with the competitor in other countries, we are forced to work harder. It should be dependent on how we see that target, as a challenge or as a barrier. Even week by week we should report to our management how the progress goes far. They always say that more than half of our roaming business is highly reliant on what our team achieve. Okay, we accept that challenge.

It’s never been this tough before, before my director was replaced by the new one and she said” I don’t wanna business as usual”. Then, the target that was set in early of this year is rectified. Our target is doubled.

Sometimes, challenge is never easy for me when I reach the boredom in my pursuant of target. I can’t just work as usual as I have to push my effort even harder. Every time I get to the office, all things I am thinking are related how to achieve the target and make creativity to reach it. I just can’t work in conventional way. It indeed requires out-of-box thinking. In our first quarter this year, we’re failed to achieve the targeted additional roaming partner. The second quarter started this April, and I never want to miss chance that I can make it and say to my boss ” I did it my way”.

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Thea April 17th, 2009

Another thing, besides the detox, I wish I can accomplish this year is joining an English speaking club. Those two were actually targeted last year in my resolution, but failed to be done. This year I start to gather some people who are willing to practice their English speaking capability through a speaking club.

The concept was discussed profoundly with Mas Chandra and Mas Apri, both are instructors of an English institution in Jakarta. They were very enthusiastic with my idea as the club that they founded is decayed. From them I know that it’s not easy to build a speaking club in conventional way. I mean you just can’t gather them up in a venue like in class, especially when the participants are working. Weekend is also a bad choice of time as they will prefer going to mall or entertainment center rather than gathering with pals practicing their English.

Departing from their shared experience, we came up with a concept that this speaking club will be held after hour, when people choose it’s better to stay somewhere while waiting for the traffic jam.  The day picked is Wednesday and the time is 7 PM. Afterward, the place is tentative but definitely in a place situated in mall or entertainment place. It can be cafe or something else.

With that concept, hopefully we can, at least, gather 15 participants who will continue committing their presence every Wednesday night. The topic can be anything interesting as long as it can “provoke”  participants to speak up. And though a relax ambiance of cafe, instead of confined-class room, hopefully people will feel relax.

Anyone would join? It starts this May 6.

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Thea April 8th, 2009

I love cooking. That passion has been growing since I was a little girl and continues clinging to my heart until now. During my teenage, my mum always asked my hand on the kitchen. In the process of assisting my mum, I learned step by step the basic skill of cooking. Slicing, frying, peeling etc.
My mum loves cooking, which skill she inherits from my granny. Because of her wide networking, she knows many people form different backgrounds. Then she sharpens her cooking skill and develops her knowledge on recipes from other provinces. That’s why since I was a child, I have been used to eat food which is relatively different from other friends. My mum is an expert on cooking bubur manado, ayam rica, botok, pepes aceh, rendang, rawon, ayam bakar bumbu rujak and many others food I can’t list.

Besides learning from my mum, now I love googling to find unique recipes. I enjoy preparing the menu for my hubby and cooking her fave dishes, such as bebek goreng, ayam penyet, tuna fettucine, shabu-shabu, tahu telur, or pecel. Technology is undoubtedly very helpful in this case. It takes no time to find recipe of green tea frappucino, my hubby’s fave beverage. From googling, I know how to make strawberry mousse that I will be cooking in the near time. However, what my mum has taught to me is the principal thing as that’s why I can cook and apply all recipes I take from google.

My mum keeps dreaming to run a restaurant where she can pour her passion on cooking fully. I know that she never has that chance unless she resigns from her current job. Mum is a very hard-working woman that she won’t feel enough of retiring her self after her tenure.Because of that, I guess she will seize her dream and make it true.

What about me? Now I start compiling all recipes which have been practiced so that in the future I have a capital to start my own business. My hubby supports my idea a lot. He wishes that we could manage a unique food place at Jogja. Both of us have worked on the concept of the restaurant. Just wait for the right time to launch it.

I see the similarity of interest between me and my mum. We both love cooking and dream to have our own restaurant. Maybe next, I will share this passion as well to my children:)

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Thea April 7th, 2009

Not many people whom I meet who dare to dream and seize it until they get what they really want. Alin is the one, a big dreamer and a hard worker. I never doubt that she obtains what she dreams as she consistently improves her self quality.

I know her since I was in a senior high school. We were from a same senior high school, but she is two years younger than me. Then we also went to the similar college, with a same concentration, International Relations. I never thought that she had a passion in journalism until I heard that she was the runner up of Liputan 6 goes to Campus. From a best friend of her, I knew that Alin had prepared all of her plans, including becoming a professional journalist. She kept practicing reading news in front of mirror, ensuring she would be delivering good intonation in front of camera.

Once graduating form college, she started her career as a journalist in the metropolis city. Despite her achievement, she started all from the very beginning, until she joined a tv station which broadcasts a qualified news program. I often found her reading the news. Little bit surprised as she looked different on the screen.

Now she’s in USA attending VOA fellowship for six months. “Wish me a good job, mbak, because if so they will extend my fellowship for another six months”, she said when we had lunch at City Plaza. I encourage her to apply for a scholarship in journalism because I conceive that she’s more than deserved to get that for she’s smart and hard worker. Her best friend, Mya, said that Alin is a big dreamer and a hard worker. I couldn’t agree more about that as it’s clearly obvious from her.

Good luck Alin. I am looking forward to hearing another achievement from you:)

Ups…if you’re one of Liputan 6 viewers, you must be familiar with the anchor Juanita Wiratmaja, It’s her anyway

• Fellas
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Thea March 30th, 2009

What children wear is disposed by the parents. That statement impressed me upon my reading on an article in national newspaper last week. It enlightens the phenomenon nowadays where children fashion becomes a business, particularly in big cities such as Jakarta. Popular brands, previously working on only adult market, now are embracing new field, accordingly children market. Not to mention the name of the brands, I am sure that they are well known.

Children, of course, don’t know if the apparel they are wearing is branded or not. Parents who know exactly about it. They don’t have any right to decide what is suitable for them and sometimes parents think they know what’s the best for their children. In such condition, they can’t explore what they want. When parents give more spaces for their children to explore what they want to choose and wear, it will give an opportunity for children to trigger their creativity.

Well, it’s just an intermezzo. Principally I haven’t had any idea how to be a mother as I’ve never been there. And I am afraid that I will be one of them, parents who under utilize children’s creativity.

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Thea March 1st, 2009

My status on Facebook this morning intrigued some friends to comment. Okay let me explain why I wrote that statement as my status. It started  from a chat with a best friend several days ago.  She’s in the crossroad whether to give a man, whom she’s not in to, a go or be patient for another one, she’s longing for.

My friend concedes to me that she chooses being patient for her Mr. Right instead of forcing her self to give her heart to a man she does not love. I have two say that both men have bright future. They have what women require from a man as their life time companion, materially speaking.

She keeps her heart to a man who’s has not shown sufficient clues that he’s also in love with my friend. While the other man has said the three words to her, I Love You. “Life is to short to love with just anybody” she says. In her waiting for the significant other, her Mr. Right, I know that she doesn’t want to push her self further with the man whom she doesn’t have heart to. She wants no regret later and thinks that the smartest way out is managing herself to answer question” when will your turn” in every occasion she encounters with old friends or after presenting wedding party of colleague.

She’s not the one who faces such condition. I have several friends who also have similar circumstances.  The question starts when we graduate and find a job. Okay, you have a job then what? Don’t you want to move further? When will you get married. And still many other questions emerge. That also happened to me years ago. Now, I never have that kind of question any longer. And I am so overwhelmed that I don’t live my life with just anybody, a settled man who’s willing to marry me, but a man that means a lot to me. And next question is, “What about baby??”.

• Fellas , Every Day Life
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Thea February 23rd, 2009

Layer by layer, I put them on the pan.
The first layer, then I applied tomato pasta with the minced meet and smoked beef. Ups, I didn’t forget to give oregano leaf into it once cooked.
Next, again, I put another layer of lasagna, which previously boiled, in which I mixed some spoons of oil into the water so they wouldn’t stick together.

I added creamy sauce, made of low fat milk that I cooked with cheddar cheese and pepper powder. It was just like making creamy soup where I fried flour with the butter.

Okay then I put another layer, then laid the tomato pasta, the creamy sauce, consecutively until the tray was full.

Finished with the layers, I prepared the oven, turned it into 150 degree. I took the pan into the open and set the timer. It was around 30 to 45 minutes. I saw the the topping, which was full with chess, melted.

And the good smell came around. It was just baked perfectly. But I couldn’t taste it directly as I had two guests to be the first taster.

Not long after that, the awaited guest came. I served the pan and let them tried first.

Nervous, I expected their comment.

“Delicious, Mbak Thea”

Then I stared to my hubby.

“It’s delicious, Hun”.

I was flattered.

In the morning before leaving for the office, I prepared some slices of Lasagna to be brought to the office. My hubby said,

“Don’t bring all of them to your office. I wanna some more”

Okay hunney. Then I left half of Lasagna with him.

“So you can cook Lasagna?”
“Is it really your first-baking?”
“You can run business, then”

Those are their comments.

In the Yahoo Messenger, my hubby said,

“I got drunk because of your lasagna. It’s just really delicious”.

Voila…my first Lasagna and it’s nice:)

• Culinary
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