things swedish

ABBA
H&M
Ikea
Noble Prize Ceremony
meatballs
princess cake
the ATM
zippers
refrigerator
computer mouse
seat belt
VASA
Dala horse
moose
Astrid Lindgren
Pippi Longstocking!

what else?

jalan jalan di swiss

friend: btw
harga ticket kira2 berapa ya
klo gw ke swiss

me: 200 euro la

friend: gile
mahal banget
for how long itu

me: iya mahal
n bkl tmbh mahal kl lu ga cepet2 book
selasa sampe minggu
terus di sini nya byr lg
200 francs utk transport
200 utk 4 hari
itu udah worth it bgt

friend: buset deh
hahaha

me: wah berubah pikiran d ya
blm naik gunung

friend: gak jadi deh klo gt

me: hrs tambah 90 francs
kl naik train khusus tambah lg 30

friend: ahaha
stop stop
lol

Mamaaa..

My JC classmate who’s here with me recently recalled that in GP class I told the whole class that my ambition was to be a mother. I don’t remember that, and I thought it was silly she’d probably just made that up to make fun of me. A mother as an ambition, really?

I spent a few days with three families with six young children. Small kids are cute, when they are not crying and screaming and running around and jumping and throwing things at each other and crying and crying and crying.. It’s not easy to be parents. Seriously. It’s not just about giving birth to a soul, your job doesn’t stop there. I can’t imagine how tortured my mom was in raising up five girls with little age gaps. And I think she’s done a pretty awesomely decent job ;)

I guess that ambition doesn’t sound so silly anymore.

Another random post

And I just have these random things accummulating in my head, that I shall pour out in the same fashion as their nature of being. Random.

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I’ve received results for 5 out of my 6 modules, got a pass for each, and I thank God for this. I got pretty decent grades for all except for this one module which was supposed to be the easier one. I barely passed. I guess it’s another lesson on complacency and pride.

-

When you know about something that you believe is good for you, will you go and enforce it to other people, to those whom you care about? I’ve recently felt this ‘I should have’ moments, where I really regretted not making some friends listen to me. It is too late now. I should learn to take the step to share and to have the urge to convince others, about things that I believe to be good, before things like this happen, before it is all to late..

-

Making decision is always hard, and I should stop having decisions made for me. I had to make some major decisions the past few days, and I must say I’m proud of myself. I’m now left with getting myself ready to live with the consequences of these decisions.

I’ve canceled my France-Italy-Spain trip which was supposed to make up the main chunk of my traveling plan, and replaced it with little day trips around Switzerland and a week trip up to Stockholm. It took me some time to pray about this and weigh my priorities and many other things. I wish I could have done it sooner and I didn’t have to disappoint anyone, I’m very sorry..

Made up my mind for my Final Year Project topic too. After much consultations and little reading up on the topics, I chose one which seems to be quite challenging. Well..

I didn’t get a room on campus, which came as quite a shock to me. I was expecting to return to my beloved PGP, to the space-constraint and over-heated room, random hang outs with random people, over-priced campus food.. but apparently, they increased the cut-off points for returning exchange students like me. But thank God for my sisters who have been offering me their room, I’m staying off campus with them and Pat this coming semester.

And thank God once again for the many lessons and for things that seem to fall into place.

-

To answer people who have been asking, again and again, and again: I’ll be back in the little red dot on 20 July!

Another good trip

I was away gobbling the legendary pork knuckle and gulping beer in Munich, acting princess of fairy tales in Neuschwanstein, cam-whoring, reliving history classes, and pigging out in Berlin, touch-and-go-ing in Brussels, and checking out the red light district and coffee shops windmills and museums in Amsterdam. It was a good ten day trip, where we made use of all means of transport (trains, car, bus, tram, bicycle, ferry, plane), where new friendships were developed, things learnt, stomaches filled, and eyes opened.

Thank God for everything that went smoothly. Things could have gone very wrong..

Erlin ♥ Berlin

Changing

Some people change their minds like they change their clothes. I probably change my mind more often than I change my clothes. I’m that fickle minded (and unhygienic).

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(Swiss Folk Melody)

I want to walk with Jesus Christ
All the days I live of this life on earth
To give to Him complete control
Of body and of soul

Follow Him, follow Him, yield your life to Him
He has conquered death, He is King of kings
Accept the joy which He gives to those
Who yield their lives to Him

I want to learn to speak to Him
To pray to Him, confess my sin
To open my life and let Him in
For joy will then be mine

I want to learn to speak of Him
My life must show that He lives in me
My deeds, my thoughts, my words must speak
All of His love for me

I want to learn to read His word
For this is how I know the way
To live my life as pleases Him
In holiness and joy

O Holy Spirit of the Lord
Enter now into this heart of mine
Take full control of my selfish will
And make me wholly Thine

It’s coming to an end..

It’s my last week in Zurich. But no, I’m not flying home as yet, because I will be travelling around Europe for one whole month, before I return home to meet the people who have been missing me ;) and to start on my Final Year Project.
BUT beside an exam that I need to take on Wednesday, and a project repot due Friday, I have travel plans (all the itinerary/hostel/transport/must-visit-places-research), packing up, souvenir shopping, FYP topic selection, and a room contract that I need to settle, and I’d probably love to squeeze some time to cook for my subtenant, bake cake, visit Jungfrau (!!) and play tourist in Zurich (I LOVE ACTING TOURIST IN ZURICH!). All in a week’s time.
Well, to think of it, I do actually have enough time, if I stop procrastinating..

And my room will be hosting a number of guests throughout this whole week. We would probably have EIGHT people in the room for two nights! We’ll work this out. It’s too bad that people come to visit when we’re having exams, we’re so much a better host when there’s no exams.

To extend or not to extend. Stockholm or Bangkok. Decisions, decisions..

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Meet Abigail :)

I sleep in her room whenever I stay over at Solothurn. We have the Indonesian Reformed fellowship that meets there every other week on Saturday. This picture was taken last Saturday morning, after she successfully woke me up from my sleep. Which explains her standing hair.
She’s so adorable, she has this baby toy bear which changes name every time I visit her house.

We did strawberry picking under the scorching sun in the afternoon. Warm and very sweet (and free of charge), definitely the best strawberries ever! We only paid for what we brought home, and at a cheaper price. But when you don’t pick them properly, they’ll get bonyok very fast.

Thankful

Nightmare came true. My worst exam nightmare took place on Friday. It was a highly anticipated oral exam on this mathematical module, my hardest module of the semester. The exam itself wasn’t supposed to be hard, in fact it was.. easy. The nice but intimidating professor just asked a few basic questions and requested some simple derivations, which were all taken straight out of the lecture notes, if not simpler, and made up just a minute percentage of the whole module. And I seriously have no idea how I TOTALLY SCREWED IT UP. I couldn’t think at all, I had problems even in calculating determinant of a matrix and solving a quadratical equation. I worked things very very SLOWLY and with a lot of MISTAKES I couldn’t believe myself. I was sure disappointed with myself, but I’m glad to think that I’ve studied all I could, understood (most of) the concepts, I couldn’t have prepared better.

But he told me I passed. Oh well.

On another note, I’ve found a Swiss girl to rent my room in July and August, which means I don’t have to pay an extra CHF 620 for nothing. And she told me that she’s very very happy to get this perfect deal, and she thanks me so much. The feeling is mutual! I was so glad to have met her and very thankful indeed..