#20 Facts about ME

1. My name is Elmira Afriani and I am a total bathroom singer.

• I get used to call El and Mira in elementary school, 
• Mira in Junior and Senior High School and 
• Ira in College till now.

2. I am a BEACH person.

3. I was a first baby who born in a one new hospital in Jambi that time, so the midwife gave her name to me. I don't like it because my siblings’ entire name is from my parent, so I don't like my name in the first time for real.

4. In College, that was the first time I knew what Elmira mean in Arabic: That was from Almira, mean "Putri yang Mulia". That's the initial moment where I started to love and appreciate my name more.

5. I was born in 9 April 1991. So I am 23 y.o.

6. I get used to be one class with people who older from me because I took one year earlier to take my education.

7. Harry Potter was the first favorite movie which made me in love to watch movie until now, in love with Britain and Obsessed with British Sexy Accent, and my Favorite writer is J.K Rowling, Dan Brown and Andrea Hirata.

8. My mark in Indonesian language since elementary school until College time was never be better than English language.

9. I had short cut hair until Senior High School, so I looked more masculine than feminine. In fact, I am totally 360⁰   different now. I am more feminine than I realized before.

10. I have no favorite colors but mostly my closets are full of Pink and Electric Blue.

11. I am the last child from 5 so I am a spoiled "Ibu" girl.

12. I love my Mom- Bu Arlis so damn much and wanna bring her to Mecca.

13. I love to read books related to literature, physiology and motivation.

14. I have a dream to have my own library in my own home deco- Nobita's house.

15. I love to keep every single random cute thing, no special character to be collected. 

16. The only one comic I loved to read is Detective Conan. I collected and bought this comic from senior high school with my own pocket money, and still love to read and collected it until now.

17. I can't draw imaginatively but once I had a dream to be a clothes designer.

18. My long life tag line is " Cita-cita selalu Terhalang Tinggi".

19. I am not a kind of woman who wanna marriage in young age :)

20. I proud to be Muslim forever and ever.

Start Loving & Being Nicer to Myself.

I have a really bad character that need to be changed. On my way to 24 and already read several psychology books, I found myself that I have a tendency where I loved to radiate negativity thru my self-talk. I didn’t realize it before till finally caught myself can’t hold my mouth to say ‘negative’ words- could be about my appearance, performance or just simple judgment for my own choice or everything around-, even within a day!

Now, I am challenging myself to play a game called Start Loving & Being Nicer to Myself.

Here is the rule; I won’t let myself say every single negative word in each day for a week. Not even ONE word. It’s like I am doing small therapy for my own self J

Deserve to give a try and I will tell you how positive this game affects me. Bye J

What My Mom Taught Me about Life

All people in this world surely have role models who guide them just like they want to be.  For me, it’s MOM.

The older I get, the more I understand that what my Mom did back there completely gave strong impacts to who I am just now.  I realized time of time I spent it close with her, the inconvenience we faced together, and how up and down this world was shake us in every situation.

She thought me to be honest, work hard, grateful, strong and independent.

For real, beyond all her anger, her smile, her kindness, her love, her attention, her patience, her support, her laugh, her braveness, and her persistent to make us smarter, She absolutely succeed how to make me stand strong to live this world in wide eyes open.

 –when I got angry, disappointed, distrust, ignore and any other feelings to her- , I just simply can hold my breath and regret all-

Trikora

Dear Blog,

Often times I might feel a particular way about something but I don’t take it seriously or voice it because I don’t realize it or don’t want to share it with others. In conclusion, I am on my way to turn 24, and still doesn’t know who I am really well*Plak.

Why?

Because I currently realized that I love many things deeply more than I imagined before. Just like you do things you like but you forget to define how much love you put to do that things till you find yourself love it so damn much.

I promised to elaborate it but this part I am gonna tell you this first,

  I am totally a ‘beach’ person now!

I love travelling so much as much as I love ‘beach’. I currently understand that me-my self has a great feeling when I jump to beach, wherever it is. The more I visited many different places, the more I understand that I have a deep feeling to admire this nature when I stared at beach.

Here is my latest trip to admire a beach, named Trikora in Tanjung Pinang with friends from IT Department, where I call this trip 

“Spend time with people you enjoy -who bring you up instead of push you down” 

Less than 24 Hours : Worth it!

Friends are like your second family. You build yourself up with them. No matter how much time we are already spent together, we indirectly engaged to make our personal growth and unlimited our ability to live a full and grounded life with them time by time. Sure, we experienced all of the joy and mystery that life has to offer and make fun of each other. We love, we share, and we have incredible people in our life – Friends

-One day free with them-

Bu Arlis

I have a great Mom ever and I used to call her IBU or by her name. Bu Arlis J

She is the perfect teacher for my life and she is a real strong woman who is never give up for everything the best for her children. She is weak and strong in the same time and she is the perfect Mom ever. None of this world deserves to be compared with the glorious of every Mom’s heart.

The term thrown around more often than any other term when people asked who the most important person in my life is, I have mine – Mom”

Home Will Always Be Home No Matter Where You Go

This year become my first year to experience the excitement of getting home as perantau.  You know, I feel so alive for the first time I see my Mom’s face after quite long. One thing I realized that my Mom’s face no more as I remembered last time. Her gray hair is already everywhere and her face is exhausted.   I know her old face is nothing in comparison with inconvenience she feels and it makes me find myself off balance for a moment. Only one small smile from her can change my life so much. It possibly makes me be bold and be courageous to do everything to make her happy.

Parallel with home, Mom will always be Mom, and my love for her will always be love till the end.

After a long journey to beat this life down in distance, only family-MOM- will open their hands in your lowest point, and it becomes the solid reason why you should make them happy and proud for their endless love to you 

Nothing but Alhamdulillah

Hi blog,

It was quite long for me to write you after I’d Mubarak holiday and I know you miss me a lot dear J

As you know, I only got 11 days to spend in my hometown. True, it was not enough but it’s more than enough to be grateful for. There is the term thrown around me more often than any other term when all I wished for the last view years became real, Alhamdulillah J

This is preference-based means to the one ultimate end, which is happiness.

I know if I write down all my stories, it won’t be as good as how I felt it, so I will give you some photos to show off *wink* and I’ll separate the rest with their own stories. Picture will talk more than what I write in :0

Lovely Sister

Family

Serendipity: Finding of something useful when looking for something else.

I should write it down upfront why I used ‘serendipity’ in my blog.

Similar with the meaning of the word, life is finding of something useful when I looking for something else. I want to write all my life’s journey, and then every time I can look back thru the writing I posted in, I feel growth. As we know, there is always a perfect day to write down in imperfect life we have, either we recognize it or not.

All I know;

Life is too short to wake up and go to bed with regret,

Life is too short to be happy by searching for reason,

Life is too short to wait up something good just happen naturally,

Life is too short to love the people, who treat you wrong,

Life is too short to get discourage and let negativity overcome us

“I don’t know the best way to nail this whole short life being so d*mn Perfect and how to make it ‘countless of happiness’, “I don’t know the best thing I have to design in this whole short life to make my life sounds perfect, I just happy to be all of I am, no matter what.

So this life-My Life- is far away from perfect, even in a story I made in this blog.

Just as I know, No one’s life goes perfectly and I choose word “serendipity” to associate it.

J J J

Edisi Pasar Malam

I’ve no idea why I do really love pasar malam and had an opportunity to be there was real exciting for me. I don’t know since when this hobby begin, but clearly I am a huge fan of Pasar Malam.

Seems like your childhood all over again ~\\(^^)//~.

Kembali menghirup udara pasar malam dengan banyak orang lalu lalang membawa keluarga itu rasanya ga bisa dijelasin. Mungkin karena waktu kecil keseringan dibawa ke pasar malam kali yak, jadi nagih banget!!! Ga tau kenapa suka banget ama sensasi yang dirasain ketika ngeliat ada emak-emak yang gendong anaknya ke pasar malam, yang bahkan emaknya ampe lupa sisiran plus bedakan karena anaknya rewel banget mao main sana-sini. Belum lagi emak-emak yang bawa 4 orang anak, even tangannya aja cuma dua. Jadilah teriakan emak-emak dimana-mana, yang nyuruh anaknya diemlah, yang nyuruh anaknya ga boleh pegang apa-apa lah, yang nyuruh anaknya ga boleh main jauh-jauhlaah, gilaa..  ngalahin demo capres yang lagi marak sekarang ini deh kayaknya.

Juga paling suka ama sensasi ketika ngeliat banyak keluarga berkumpul dan berbagi kebahagiaan bersama, paling suka ngeliat pasangan muda yang gandeng istri pertamanya*Loh*, paling suka ngeliat berbagai macam orang yang berbeda-beda, baik sama keluarga, sama istri/suami, sama pacar, sama anak-anak, sama teman-teman atau Cuma sendirian dan mereka memiliki pancaran wajah bahagia yang sama. hal-hal sederhana seperti itu aja udah cukup bkin melting ga karu-karuan.

Nah, bonus yang paling menyenangkan lainnya adalah ketika ketemu balon yang banyak banget, sama jajanan pasar yang banyak banget, permainan yang banyak banget, dan ini salah satunyaa :

 apalagi saya ketemu sama yang satu ini : Jeng Jeeeng…

Menaiki permainan ini aja sudah romantis, entah kenapa permainan yang satu ini selalu bisa bikin bahagia. I just simply happy  ketika berada disuatu tempat yang saya bisa ngeliat hal-hal berbeda dengan sudut pandang yang berbeda. Semoga saja bisa mencoba wahan-wahana semacam ini lainnya di tempat berbeda, daerah berbeda dan di Negara yang berbeda. From now on, it becomes one of my dreams then. :) 

Why I should change myself?

Dear my blog, people always said time changes people, and I am in that process right now.

I used to comfy with who I am before I got one situation to push me hard to change, not a little, but a great change for my life.

After graduated, you will be completely shocked by real fact that life after that time was so full of pressures. You finally understood that your college time was an amazing days to be passed by. But, one more way to think of it, it would be more and more amazing days if I did what I should did and be the one I was supposed to be at that time. Now, I clearly see who I am this time based on what I did in the past, and I am not really feel satisfy because I didn’t do it well L

A Passive Person and Feel ‘OK’ with That. I don’t know, maybe I used to be a girl who is kind of difficult to say similar thing from brain to mouth. Perhaps it happened because I am not raised in independent way to say anything I want.  Maybe I also a type of girl who has no effort to show off capabilities I have. From elementary school up to my collage time, I wasn’t not really interested in join class’s discussion, I wasn’t freely raised up my hand to question what I think of or even give my comment in the class. I just silly sit in my chair and did enjoy my own question was asked by another students. STUPID me.

I knew definitely that I was probably a kind of girl who needed a trigger to make me speak up. I only interested to verbalize what I thought in presentation class, where I really needed to explain by my own self the topic in front of class. I only said things when someone asked me. I need to be forced by people surround me or by situation to force me speak up in public. It seems like I CAN but I am not showing that I CAN. For 23 years I was feeling OK with that, but right now, I am no longer fit that way anymore.

I am Who I am With. I felt those old amazing days would be more worthy when I am supposed to be a person I should be, it means I need to be as smart as my age or even more, I need to be mentally ready to face variety of people around, I need to be more knowledgeable, I need to be more confident and I need to be more courage to beat this earth down. I realized that whoever I close with, I am really easy to get their influence either good or not, I am really easy to “yes” for where all the conversation goes on, and my mood also decide by the other’s, so I can be a positive person when people surround me radiate the positivity. I’d love these people, because when I am in pessimistic mood, they are ready to slap words over my face, but unfortunately these kind of people don’t promise me all of their time. That’s why I completely realize it is really not a good character I have and I need to change it real soon!

Now, I really am the person, who needs a huge change in me, I need to transform myself to be stronger, confident, and mature to face all things ahead of me. I’ve to be smarter and stronger, *fighting*

How “Walter Mitty” Affects Me

         

When there were only 10 people in the theater, I did not expect much from this movie initially. My friends and I just randomly chose this movie because I thought it was so much better than ‘paranormal activity’ *sorry... It was my personal judgment*. 

Honestly, it made me a bit worry, you know, we didn’t want a boring Friday night with a boring movie. But in fact, I got something and how this movie affects me, here it is J

          

I would like to say that this is a really simple movie with simply ideas behind. Walter Mitty is regular worker who spent 16 years in LIFE magazine. He is a daydreamer who always imagines heroic actions to ‘create’ himself as an extraordinary person. These imaginations come from the way she falls in love with his work-partner, he wants to attract her attention in real life but it  turns out happen in his imaginations, sure, in an over ordinary imaginations. He gets troubles where he should find out the negative picture number 25 that will be printed as the last cover of LIFE magazine. The journey began when he bravely decided to travel away looking for the photographer ‘Simone O’connell’ to get the lost picture and to save his career. By support from the girl he loves, Greenlad, Island, Afghanistan and Himalaya, those are the places he travels into just to find out that picture no. 25. Then a after long trip, finally he found the photographer in the top of Himalaya. Ironically, the picture actually was in the 1^st place- wallet he got from the photographer, not in the photographer itself. So, his entire journey were useless because of all he needed is in the place he never expected it would be (wallet as present by O’connell at beginning scene).

***

What I think of:

ü  The picture he is searching for is associated with happiness.

ü  This is the journey about one person who looks for definition of life (happiness) while he is living in it. He gets so much confuses to describe life he lives in and using other standard to measure it.

ü  This is about a person who rediscovers meanings of life (happiness), when he is looking for it, he just simply don’t understand that what he is walking in is the thing he is looking for.

ü  This is about the person who manifests the unconscious mind into action. All of heroic imaginations I thought come from the oppression he has deep down. He is a kinda person who needs efforts to bravely out of his comfort zone and to dealing with life without thinking of money only.

ü  This movie also spread such a good, simply and smart idea;

         “The Beautiful things don’t ask for attention”

      ü  I also interest with the motto from the Life magazine :

         “To see the world

          Things dangerous to come to

          To find each other, and to feel

          That is the purpose of life      

 ü  Last, during the whole scenes, I DO enjoy the beautiful scenery displayed. It makes me want to travel a lot.   A LOT!

        

       This movie inspires me to :

1. Don’t Wait Just Do – Totally I have to, because I am worried too much.

2. Enjoying every second in my life without caring other’s perspective in creates ‘Waw Effect’.

   In fact, each of us has it, here, inside!

3. How different your life would be when you step out from your comfort zone.

Move On - Start Over

: Over years when you looked back to the past, somehow you’ll find your self is defined from pain you received:

And after years, this is the first time Me – Myself bravely want to write it down.

***

I honestly admit myself that there is a deep hole inside my heart. I am pretending that it doesn’t exist but the truth is it’s always there. I was forget how this hole came up to affect me, but I was actually feel bad for keep this hole opened for years and never tried to fill it with peace and apologize. It’s not the problem I remembered the most, but the way they reacted. I can’t simply explain how it was going at that time, but one thing for sure; it was hurt me a lot.

Moved on from circle of time where you can’t stand for which position is true was hard, but it was harder when you were judged by people you never know before. Being a joke, got public humiliation on social media, trust issues and insulted several times weren’t my favorite days to deal with at that time. Pretending that I was fine actually the time where I dug the small hole become the big one. Once I fought it, the less happy I was. By time, I hoped I could get over it, but in fact I was no longer feeling the same way I hoped I would be. I didn’t know how to over it, but I did face it with all I can do. Those memories were defined who I am just now; I was full of anger and resentment for those who treat me wrong, and let all the insincere drive me crazy and I am sick of myself that way. I don’t wanna be that person. I feel bad when I get up in the morning and keep finding myself feel unhappy. It seems like the part of my life I once filled has been nothing since I put so much effort to change it.  It’s best just to state things plainly at this point. Right?

“what hurt you today makes you stronger tomorrow”

***

Time heals every wound.

After a year, I finally ready to put back all hurtful felling that I’ve been kept for years no matter what. I wanna shut them down. I wanna forget all those bad words they said about me, all the mockery, the underestimate eyes and how they genuinely make fun of me. For sure, It’s not easy, but I want a good life forward, I want to forgive myself so I can forgive them. The better person I wanna be where I am not measure my happiness with somebody else. Here I am. The place where they are the people I thank for, they are the people who lead me to be me this time. So someday when I will drive back to place I was before, we will be only memories to each other, no regret and no pain to re-feel. Because I already let it all things go and I already get myself away from any relation back there. So, I hope I will be free from anything related to so I can live my life as a new one, as a better person. In Sha Allah.

Dear April, I suppose you will expect me to say “I DO LOVE April”

You should know upfront when I write one story, it may be bad. Just read it to know :)

***

Dear April, When you came out, I already knew how unforgettable you were \(´▽`)/

April, this year you gave me so many things to remember for the rest of my life. Honestly, I don’t want it to be real only ‘this April’, but also for upcoming April years to come. April seems like summer for me, it gives me warm and unspeakable feeling. My heart is full of expectation with joy in it. Probably, April is similar with New Year eve for me, where I do re-evaluate myself with my own created standard, and it helps me to fell completely new. That’s why April radiates me positivity and optimism I need the most to be better. 

April is also the turning point for me to grow up because I was born in April. It means the tipping point I measure how mature I am is thru April. That’s why April so damn special for me.  

 ***

I felt like I already asked so many things in my pray but not as much as I was grateful to God in the same time, and I feel bad for that. I already got 23 this year and it made me really believe that gratitude is the sustenance that maintains the infinite blessing we got. It mostly about time and how I can never buy it back.

 

For the sake of God, I already got what I wish from the last birthday. I was a jobless last year and now I get one. I hope I could get a better career here and this April I got a job promotion. I hope I could financially help my Mom and now even not much I already do that. I hope I could get home to visit my Mom by my own money, and this April I got the ticket on my hand right now. These are some big things I Do really grateful for. Maybe for some of you these aren’t the big things happen in your life, but this is really huge for me.

The part of my life I once filled with down feeling, sadness, and disappointment has been nothing just now. Time taught me how to cover it well. Like what I often listen from people around, when you get older, you have a higher standard for everything, and now, I believe that. No matter whether people counted me either good or bad one, I am who I choose to be, and I choose to move on and do things that my future will thank me for. Then, I would preserve my memories for stand still in the future.  These are the sort of things I have to learn by living my life.

You know what April; You totally surprised me a lot

 

Our Last Date in April

I never imagined in my 23^rd birthday, I would get these much blessing.

The day before the H day, my Mom and Dad came to Batam just to celebrate my birthday. For every hardship they got before touch down in Batam (by bus, taxi and ferry in the same day from Malaysia to Batam), I’ve no words to say how endless their love for me. I never expect I would bring my parent by Angkot as long as in Batam but with all smile in their face, they were donating all their energy just to let me felt completely happy in my day. 

 ***

I really got so much another birthday surprised this April, I got it from my best friend at office (thanks Ade and Dewi *thousand kiss*), I got so much presents, I got so much photos with “congrats words “in it and I had opportunity to visit Bandung to found another surprised party from my long life best friend Gesti and Bibi and plus Gime’s family (my Supervisor Bang rey, bang Ozy and Wingky)- Thank You Guys, *hug tight*. 

 

Last Day - Bandung

I am not a good writer yet to write down my memories into lovely words, I really want to be but am sure I need thousand practices for that. Here, I would like to say Thank you April, you made up all things real for me, Thanks God for made my last year wish came true and made me so much better than I used to be.  I hope I can be way better than before, and next year I want to write my 24^th wish :D

For the God sake, how can I hate this April!