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Hey! As some of you guys know, I am a huge fan of Jason Mraz. He's one amazing singer. And yeah, I'm listening to one of his songs as I am writing this post now! So I read this note of his in facebook, which is about the things he's grateful for in 10 years, which he listed down in 90 seconds. You can read it here. Inspired by this note, I make this post!

But it's not exactly the same, cus I'm not that old. I mean... 10 years of gratitude? 10 years ago I was this naive little girl who doesn't even know where Singapore is located, and who thinks that the only cool job in the world is doctor and astronaut. And now? I am living in that frikin place. So I decided to shorten the period of my gratitude to... ONE YEAR.


2010 was awesome. Awesomely tough. And I awesomely survived. Well, with scratches and bruises in some places, but still in one piece. And I won't be able to do it without the help of these things. Few minutes ago, I set my countdown timer application in my phone to 1 minutes 30 seconds, and type these things I'm grateful for in notepad.


So here are what I'm grateful for:

• BESTIES
• scholars!
• junior highschool buddies
• parents!
• sisssssss
• cousins and aunties and uncles
• grandma's lomie and ayam garing
• Om ady & Tante chen chen!
• Christmas
• Sekolah minggu
• CHURCHMATES
• ROSES!
• HOSCOMM
• seniors!
• XINHUI my partner!
• schoolmates
• Holidays
• Skype
• MSN
• internet!
• MOE for monthly salaries
• Mum for sending reflection everyday
• Laptop
• Ipod

This pict was taken wayyyyy in 2009. We may change physically, but we're still together! :).







Talking about having second family, I can't forget my first and most amazing family in the world. My very own parents and sisters, of course. They're awesome. Yes, now you get it where I got my awesome-ness, huh. ;);).

All those people. They create smile on my face, sometimes even when tears were on the very edge of my eyes, ready to flow down. Thanks for an awesome year of 2010 :).


Actually there are loads more that I am very grateful for, but 90 seconds is short, huh. Maybe I'll give myself another 90 seconds for another post someday!


And why don't you guys try for your very own list! Give yourself 90 seconds!



GO!

Hello there, stranger!

Wow, finally we talk to each other, huh. The urge to poke your shoulder and say hi is rily tempting! But hey, I have manners. So here I am, talking to you! Yes, you! Any stranger doing blogwalking, perhaps. Or you, anyone I met on the street or at the mall today. Or you, who sat in front of me in the church, or maybe behind me. Errrr or YOU! A schoolmate I always bump into when walking during recess but never talk! Or maybe you, someone getting on the same MRT or bus as I do!

I'd like to say, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Maybe we'll meet again Till then, have a nice life! :)


 Lotsa love, egi.

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Okay, today's recipient of the letter is kinda... unusual, huh. I was expecting something else. But phew, here it is.
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Hi there, dreams.

I have a few questions. Why can't I choose which one I want to see tonight? Or the next night? And the next next night?

And why some of you made me want to stay in bed all day, while others made me want to get up as soon as it flashed through my mind?

Lastly, why must you be unreal? I want you to beat that guy called reality. He's mean. I don't like him. He bites, he stabs me not from the back, but right on my chest. He punches me on my face, sometimes. That hurts.

And this place called dreamland. Your city, huh? I want to be there. Can you send me a ticket to go there?

Looking forward to hearing your answers. And the ticket.


Cheers, egi.

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Dear sisssses,

Erm. This is super awkward.

Firstly, about the fights and arguments we had. I'm sorry. I'm selfish sometimes. i'm just easily annoyed. sorry about that, kay. It's just hard being the oldest. sigh. but i'm doing my best, huh.

Anyways. This year was different. huge difference. I'm far far away in singapore, and you're back home. I was afraid that it would change everything, that we won't be as close as we were, and all that. But hey, my fear was stupid and mythical! We're still close as ever!

Here's something I'd like to say to you.

* Good luck in reaching your dreams, you can do it. Even if you fail, keep on fighting, cus it's not the end of the world, trust me. And be nice, your teachers were mine, too. Hahahahahas ;).

** And for you, little one, enjoy your life. Childhood was the awesome-st time ever. Have fun!


Yeah, it's the three of us against the world :).

I'm not saying this often, and you two know that. Emmm. I love you!


egi.

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(okay I decided to continue my 30 letters project. Can't promise that I'll do this daily, sorry about that. but I'll try my best to complete this project.)

Dear Crush,

It's been such a nice time of my life to know you.
I'm sorry if I had been mean or pushy or whatever once.
I've never thought that I would fall
How's your life? Having fun?

Errr happy holidays.

egi.

AAAAA I'm sooooo eggcited! I'M DEFINITELY GOING TO TRY THIS OUT SOON! Oh and you should try this too! This drink is top rated in the books. lol :D.


Well, i'm not really sure if this recipe would work, but it worths a try! Cheers! :)


*maybe you can change the ice cream flavour to vanilla or something else if you can't find the butterscotch flavour! :)
**fyi, one cup is.... around 235ml.
***butter extract. you can find it in baking shops.
****source: ohdeerly.blogspot.com


And anyways. Have a magical December!

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Well I wanted to hibernate, but I think not this blog. I love this much more than my twitter account!


Well oops, you read me right, I'm hibernating my twitter account, till after Christmas! Why? Yes, good question. I just want to pull myself out of the crowd, back to the basic such as my blog, my tumblr account (yes I'm on tumblr! it's http://reginaekaputri.tumblr.com Err I know it's a bit late, but heeey I'm a newbie and proud of it!), MSN, and facebook (well, this one is actually crowder than twitter, but I'd like to catchup with some people there, and greet those having birthdays!)

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Anyways. Let's go back to the title!


YES BABY CHRISTMAS IS COMING! I always loooooove Christmas more than anything. Well, not more than my birthday. Emm. Okay.

So it's officially my second most favourite day of the year! Why? For this thing, Why is not a really good question. I think everyone who favours Christmas has the same reason as I do.

I like the Christmas decoration, the red and green combination, the Christmas trees, the Christmas songs, the Christmas eve mass at the church, the birth of Jesus, the food, the legends about Santa Claus's workshop and the elfs, creating wishlist, the presents, and yes, of course, the SPIRIT!


         Talking about decoration and trees, it's such a sad thing that I'm not putting a tree this year :(.
Last year I helped my aunt and uncle putting up and decorating a tree, and my batchmates and I, we put up our own tree in the hostel! And we had this small committee, making a stable, complete with all the statues of baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the angels, and the shepherds!


But this year, I'm not spending my november and december in singapore! Which is a totally great thing, of course, but sadly, in here, my Christmas tree is kinda... spoiled and broken down. I asked my mum about buying a new one, but she said there was no space that is big enough to store it. So my house is kinda plain for this year's Christmas, but that's okay! We still have the SPIRIT. YEAAAAH.





          Talking about... hmm lemme think. the songs! Aaah I love listening to Christmas songs.

And the good thing is that... they're everywhere this month! Yeay :D

They're so calming and they somehow increase your SPIRIT. My favourite song is Winter Wonderland, the Jason Mraz's version! And White Christmas, Michael Buble's version. Ooh and there's this song which I'm not so sure what the title is, the lyrics are like this "Long time ago, in Bethlehem, the holy Bible said // Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ // was born on Christmas day" Well, that's the lyrics, if I'm not mistaken. It's such a nice song, I had a cassette of Christmas songs, with that song in it. However, the thing is broken now. Oh well, I'm gonna look for that song later! ;).





           The next I'm gonna talk about is the mass. There's a particular mass I've never missed for years.

It's the Christmas Eve mass! At my church, at 9 PM.

It finished minutes before 12, that's why I love it. Because it's so Christmas-Eve-ish! Lol :) I started going to this mass when I was in 4th grade of primary. My neighbours and my parents, they were in charge of the Christmas masses that year. And four children, including me, were to perform as angels! Man, that was the most feminine Christmas of my life, I guess. I was to wear white dress, plus the white wings, and dance to the songs sung by the choir. I remember, it was "Slamat slamat datang, Yesus Tuhanku." We were performing at the 5PM mass, the first Christmas Eve mass. After performing, we got out, and had our dinner. At 9PM, I went back for the second mass. The mass was so solemn, and aah, the choirs are always the best. They always succeed to instill such a great SPIRIT. I decided that I'm gonna go again in the next years! Well, I do, till last year! :)



            The FOOOOOOOOD. OHHH My favourite. Let's talk about this year's plan. My mum plans to cook lamb chops and roasted chicken for the dinner! And she's thinking about baking brownies and some other kind of cakes (and I'm still trying to convince her to do ;)) Let's have some SPIRIT on the food, baby! :9.



            Ahh, the legend. I've always believed in Santa Claus, you know. just like other innocent, naive, kiddos. But at age of, errr, I can't remember, I figured out that it was my parents who have always been buying me presents.

That year, they were buying me and my sister bicylce. Their plan of convincing us that it was Santa Claus who bought it was almost successful. Unfortunately, they left the warranty card on the bike. My mum's name was on it. Sigh. Reality hurts, man.

However, I'm thankful indeed, that my parents instilled the Santa Claus image in my sisters and me when we were young. We were such terrified kiddos when Christmas was approaching. We would try our very best to behave well, so that we would not be kidnapped by Zwarte Pieten or Black Pete. There was a time when my sister was a crybaby, and one day when we went to a mall, we met this black pete guy. My mum talked to this guy, and bring this guy to my crying sis. After talking for a few minutes, my sis suddenly stopped crying, and after that, she was too scared to cry. Yes, my mum is -.-, but we were even more -.-


Yet heey! We grew in such a great Christmas SPIRIT, especially in the morning, when we ran all the way to the tree, and discovered that we had got a lot of presents. We would thank our parents and Santa Claus. Yes, we were naive, extremely naive, I know.



           Years after that, my sisters and I decided that, Hey, we should exchange presents! If Santa Claus does not exist, so why don't we, yes, we, become Santa Claus ourselves! So yeah, we have this habit of writing our wishlists, and exchanging it with each other. Before writing them down, we consider the budget. Then each of us will look through the list, and choose one thing that we would like to buy. Then we wrap them, hide them, and give them in the Christmas morning! It's always interesting, and we're always as excited as little toddlers when we're writing down our wishlist, buying each other's presents, and (of course) opening the presents! Yeah baby the SPIRIT's on us! :)



Last but not least, the SPIRIT. Hmm, I don't think I need to talk about it again, as it's mentioned all throughout this post. Yes, you're right.

The CHRISTMAS SPIRIT is actually everywhere.
It's in you. In me. In all of us.

And it's better if we share it with everyone, isn't it? That, is why I'm sharing my experiences, my burning SPIRIT of Christmas, right now with you guys! Well, you can freely do what my family do, too! Cook some lamb chops, roasted chick, bake some cakes, exchange some presents, put up a Christmas tree and  guess what. Perhaps in the future, I'd like to tell my kiddos that Santa Claus exists! :).


HAPPY EARLY CHRISTMAS!

Oh schweet. My project thingy is officially an epic FAYYYYYL-lure. it doesn't even consist of more than five friggin letters. I beg you my apology.

So anyways. I'm now back home! Yes. For two fucking months. Well it's not two full months, though, but still, it's the longest holiday I get this year. I'm gonna be in Indonesia till THE FIRST OF JANUARY, BABYYYYYY.

Okay, so let's talk about FAILURE.



a thing that no one wants to happen in their lives, of course it is. But sadly, some wants it to happen in others' lives. Others, as in, enemies and rivals, perhaps. For myself, failure has been, I may say, my sweet companion throughout this whole year.

However, as a companion, it makes me learn, too. I learnt that failure is only a small rock on my way, which I can jump over easily, with enough determination and perseverance. It may hurt when you hit the rock, but after that pain, you can't deny that you're tougher. You're stronger, and you're ready to face another rock. And perhaps, you'd prepare yourself with buffers, too.


Aah, failure.