Hm.. kata "bakal" and "loh" dan pola menyingkat kata (mengerti jadi ngerti) akan beneran masuk gak yah dalam kamus Bahasa Indonesia versi terbaru ini?
Lengkapnya baca di sini: http://pelitaku.sabda.org/bahasa_gaul_gitu_looh*

*Penulis sampai saat ini masih mengharap (baca: cita2 boleh dong setinggi langit) dalam setahun ini bisa menciptakan satu kata baru untuk menambah koleksi bhs gaul di kamus terbaru

Going into the third and fourth week in kindergarten, Keith started to adjust better and could control himself (no outburst, meltdown, yelling) even though he started to break down and letting it all out once he saw me after school but in the classroom he could control himself better than the first two weeks of school. I think it was a good sign of a more stable emotional level on his part. I also talked to the teacher for weekly updates and she agreed with me even though she said she tested him on focus. I heard what she said but I had a question about homework so I went ahead with my question. That was last week.

Earlier this week, I asked Keith teacher again about the result of the test. To my understanding, I thought she did a test on Keith's social emotional skill, to be specific on his focus. Actually the test was about Keith's rhyming. The teacher further told me that Keith couldn't produce rhyme sounds, he could read it and found it fun but he can't produce the rhyme individually.

( Read more... )

I was reading the latest newsletter from Pleasanton Unified school district when I saw a class on Brain Gym was listed under Parent Education Classes. I've never heard about it, I Googled it and tried to see what it's about. This is what they say on their site: What Are Educational Kinesiology and Brain Gym®?

I was browsing their Aids & Stuff page (http://www.braingym.com/html/aids___stuff.html) and found a picture that is familiar to me. I used to do this kind of movement regularly when I was in elementary and middle school in Jakarta.  It was as part of a series of exercise (baca: Senam Kesegaran Jasmani alias SKJ) that was compulsory PE at that time. Whenever we could use a laugh during PE, we did it as impression of our PE teacher. Looking at that picture definitely gave an inevitable chuckle and brought a lot of fond memories of my early school years in Jakarta. Anyways, the movements in the series looked and felt funny, I didn't know they were supposed to do good to us!

Here is a picture as a reference of what I was talking about:














Aduh Pak sapa yah namanya? Gak di SD, gak di SMP kocak2 bener bapak2 praktekin gaya ini.. serius pula, padahal kocak bener gayanya, sambil teriak2 marah2 soalnya gaya kita gak bener... ampuun deh kocak!

( Read more... )

We don't buy toys as often since our son turned three years old. All he has been playing with now are his planes, Legos, game boards, and games at kid's sites (including Disney, Lego, Nick, Starfall). Other than toys that were marked 70% off and above, we rarely buy toys lately. I think I got to the point that I thought I might not need to browse for toys other than game boards. Until two days ago when I saw (pre recorded) episode of View from the Bay that featured fun developmental learning toys.

From watching the show, I now have some toys that I've just added to my Amazon.com wish list. We might not buying them all for our son but they definitely make great ideas for presents. Here are some of them: Wild Planet Spy Gear® Spy Night Scope, Wild Planet Spy Gear Night Goggles, No Stress Chess, and Discovery Kids 2-in-1 Microscope (Detachable Monocle). This one we'd probably will make it a present for Keith when he deserves one: Planet Earth Grow-A-World Kit.

I'm still not sure whether to subscribe to ToyTips magazine or not for now (they didn't state the subscription period on the site) but I think I like the magazine. Those periodic table shower curtains and SAT word curtains definitely will make great gifts.

We've moved to a new place in mid May and through end of June we's been moving some light stuff and all fridge content from the old apt. On the 7th of June we had a little get together at the new place with my cousin's family and another family. It's been a busy time for my family after the moving, unexpectedly now my life is full of random activities and new routines.

I've been having daily playtime with Keith since last month (it's good stimulation for him, making him more like a happy kid rather than a easily frustrated kid),  other than that there was random stuff such as: a get together at the new place, Father's Day,  Six Flags trips, first day of Summer camp, sale season (matisha thank you yah GCnya udah gue belanjain eheh gak sale siy just some essential stuff to update my look), I've been also trying to fit Pilates/Wii Fit (my current Wii Fit age is 22 yrs old)  in my daily schedule and also buy ready food/frozen or eat out to give me some break sometimes. Early this week I started to go to bed early with Keith to set his new bedtime (this routine worked the best for him when he needed to set his bedtime a couple of hours ahead) for the summer camp (once he'll get the routine, he'll go back to fall asleep by himself, I told him I was tired so I had to go to bed with him just to set his expectation that this is only temporary)... so many things to do so little time, I have no time for my digital scrapbook designs.. I have to get back to three store owners who sent me some invitations to sell at their place but unfortunately I'm still fulltime SAHM and I just don't know how it'll work out with my almost hiatus activity in designing.

In my limited time online time now, I managed to watch some Indonesian movies on the second monitor while organizing new photos, uploading photos, updating DS' LJ, chatting, replying email and stuff... Here are some movies I wathed recently on YouTube:
Drop Out, Kawin Kontrak, Mereka Bilang Saya Monyet, Tentang Cinta, Extra Large, Tiga Hari Untuk Selamanya (duh Mandy, ibu producer, sorry yah ikut nonton bajakan nih abis kepefet Man, bagus filmnya :)..)...

Penyanyi baru juga gak sengaja nemu yg enak, eh taunya pernah dateng ke SF summer lalu apa gitu deh, sampe diwawancarain majalah Kabari segala namanya: White Shoes & The Couples Company dengan gaya 70snya, clip2nya asli prop and settingnya kuno abish, dandanan and gaya manggungnya juga... berasa gue masih balita nonton ini lol padahal sih udah tua gini :D Ini interviewnya mereka buat Yahoo. Sebelumnya di playlist gue udah ada RAN, Yovie & Nuno, Afgan, Park Drive, Maliq & D'Essentials, and Santa Monica ... Ini legkapnya ini playlist gue di YouTube. Apalagi siy group baru yg enak yah?

Btw gue upgrade Firefox beberapa minggu lalu, gue ambil Firefox 3 yg bhs Indonesia... nyokap punya yahoo bhs Indonesia, jadi yah gue pikir gue at least ter ekspose sama terminology internet/komputer dalam bhs Ind. So far so good :) Yg paling berkesan, download itu bhs Ind-nya Unduhan. Gue langsung inget bhs Jawa: ngunduh mantu. Jadi sekarang ortu2 jangan pusing2 kalo mau cari mantu, tinggal didownload dari internet lol

On weather update in Pleasanton as for this week, it ranges from the 50s - 80s F so Keith's wearing long sleeves to summer camp and I always have one of my sweaters/jackets ready in the car if not having them on or toting them around :D

Have a great Summer!!! :)

I'm warming up to get back on a race with myself lol! I have lots of expectation on what to get done by the end of the week but mostly I can only meet 25% of the to do list! Yikes! I have to focus focus focus! I'm cutting most of my cooking time to only making pancakes for breakfast and instant doodle for midnight snacks lol My major distractions right now are the streaming videos (mysoju.com, netflix.com), gossip and fashion blogs, deals sites, messengers and FD forum. I'm even barely can catch up with my LJ friends! eeekk!!

My weekends are usually used up easily for running errands, doing laundry and ironing, cleaning up the apartment, sleeping late and eating out with Wan and Keith. When Wan is not traveling he usually not eager to go out during the weekend, so we mostly end up staying in the apartment.

I've added new products to my stores at SophiaSarducci.com (under the name of Patrizia Pascala, my Italian alias lol) and reopened my store at DigiScrapWarehouse.com. My goal right now is adding new products to my store at Scrapbook-Elements.com at least two weeks from now.

In the mean time, I'm still a full time mommy, my DS is my first priority. He always keeps me busy and these are some of the activities we do together lately: Spring Break 2008, fish tank craft we did today & other updates.

On a more fun note, these are what left from my birthday back in March:

I'm excited, a little something I wrote for Fashionese Daily Blog (winner of Pesta Blogger 2007 in Women's Issue category) was released today.  Since it was my first submission for the blog, I thought I wrote something I knew best: cheap chic style ;) 

With the raising of gas price (that could touch around $4/gallon soon), Wan was thinking of taking a plane if we've ever wanted to go to LA this Summer. I still thought driving is still the cheaper way to go, until I got an update from http://www.smartertravel.com/ this morning. The site leaded me to this site http://www.farecast.com/ that I though a very cool site. Farecast found the airfare from SFO to LAX for as low as $97 round trip and they have 72% that the fare will remain steady. Cool! They even have round trip from SF to Vegas as low as $107. I envied Kimberly when she with just her girl friends went to Vegas to have a spa treatment and having fun. I would love to go with my girl friends one day too! But that's a different story, for now we're definitely hoping that the SFO - LAX fare will remain low at least when we'll finally decide to go this Summer ;)... or NOT..., well I just love to see the that fare (especially) so we can have the security of having a choice to have a quick getaway just any day we want :D

Have you've been ever feel exhausted from maintaining your social relationships? In different relationships you have from siblings, marriage, family, friends, support groups, work places , you've been trying to fit in, to feel secure, accepted and respected. While you're doing your best, you will sometimes encounter difficulties. As people change, relationship becomes dynamic and you might encounter these unbalance situations in relationships:  some people use relationships more that others to get what they want, some needs to be dominant, some shows withdrawal or antagonism, some being emotionally abussive, some have draining communication patterns, and some can even step into dangerous areas by enforcing their morals and principals to the other parties. The list can go on and on.

We voluntarily let ourself to be part of a commitment in relationships. Some are not by choice like the family you have and people you work with but in making friendships you do have a choice. My mom has never been stressing this enough to me, even though I've been telling her (not straight to the face since I'm Asian lol, not trying to get myself disowned) that she might be wrong. I thought friends are fun, they come in different sizes and colors and treats. As time goes by especially after I get closer to my cousin, I think my mom is right, friends can also come with different prices that you have to pay. Some show up with skeleton in their closets and some have overweight baggages too! Yikes! Before I got married my mom told me to say No to be submissive to unhealthy friendships and relationships. A few months ago, my cousin said it's OK to trim your friendship tree. I don't know why it takes so long for me until all of this sinking in (maybe the moving is one of the reasons), but I feel I finally agree with them.

With all the challenges of the relationships you have to commit maintain and keep (marriage, professional relationships at work), you need friends to listen to you and actually can help you to be in a good mental health. First you need to choose your friends. As Kahlil Gibran says "When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends". We need to be surrounded with friends whose qualities we think highly of because by looking at them, people would identify your personality and who you are.

In looking for friends, even though there are lots of friendship compatibility calculators out there, I think we have to listen to our feelings whether we feel highly compatible with our friends or not. When you find some friends who have been accepting you as you are, extending equal friendship with you and have been there whenever you need them, you know that you have to keep them as your friends.

Friendship can be very difficult to keep sometimes. When you find a never ending power struggles in your game of friendship and when things get sour, get help. When you look for help some would suggest to take a stand, negotiate and work things out. If the roads lead you to other options no other than cutting that friendship ties don't be as naive as I used to be, avoid conflict and reconsider as they might be the only solutions for your own sake.

It is not always easy as well to maintain the friendship that you have right now but I think it's worth it to try the best you can. Play your part well, don't disappoint and eventually you might be having an enjoyable friendship game of your life.

***Lots of love and thanks to my bestest friends in different corners of the world.  

Yep, It's that time again when I'm getting old little by little lol Thank you to you, my family and friends who have sending your love and wishes on my birthday!!! Without you, my birthday wouldn't have been as wonderful!

I don't remember we ever had a special dinner planned on our birthdays since we had Keith, maybe anniversary but not birthdays. So yesterday we went ahead and spended the day at a airshow in Sacramento (in this outfit).

For dinner, since it was my birthday I got to decide what we were going to eat yay!. I was craving for rolls so we went to a sushi place. We tried the one close by so Wan had time to relax and pack before going to Austin.

( Read more... )

***Happy belated birthday to my birthday sisters: marmalade81 and japl ****

Yesterday Keith, Wan and I (click here to see my outfit of the day) went to Chabot Space and Science center .

I've been in a break in designing digital scrapbooking due to DH relocation. I'm still trying to get back on my designing track again when I'm was in a middle of a chat with Agnes Lahur, my fellow digital scrapbooking designer. In the beginning of our conversation, she encouraged me in checking out a threat at DST Designer Conference Room about the latest rampant piracy, over 6000 link illegally shared!!! I've heard about this from SBE mailing list weeks ago but I didn't think that mine would be pirated. Anyway, Ays (that's how I call Agnes) gave me the link to DST and I obviously has taken a break for too long (4 months is too long for my brain) because I couldn't remember my password to DST. I tried to retrieved my password but apparently I the one that I've forgotten was my own username! Classic!

 

I received an email on Jan 19  from Elan of coolest-birthday-cakes.com that my cake had been added to his site here: http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/army-theme-birthday-party.html#c1

Thanks Elan for approving my submission!

I recently encountered this blog: http://thejavajive.com owned by Brandon. I enjoyed the photos on his blog, all are breathtaking! Today I've just realized that he also had a "Bule Behavior" category in which one of the posts I read. Some of the comments to that post crank me up! LOL

Western Men, Indonesian Women.

When we were having dim sum at Koi Garden a few weeks ago, I saw a boy holding his chopstick with a chopstick holder. It almost looked like a smooth plastic laundry pin that has holes on them (as the chopstick holders, so you can put bamboo chopsticks through them).

... for me, especially since my SIL and BIL have left for their home in Arizona today. So from now on everything is back to normal :) They've been staying with us on their vacation since new year's eve. I still have some pics that I took from the new year stay at Lake Tahoe and other pics taken during their stay here that I've just uploaded to my gallery.