I said I'll be home for Christmas

I'm taking a break. :) This Christmas, I'm having fun in a way that is pretty much a complete reversal to the kind of fun that I usually have in the other nation-state.


There was family. There was a friendly competition for Christmas gift. Well, technically everyone ended up with a gift, but I wouldn't get this cute tumbler and be stuck instead with a weird set of tea spoons if I didn't take the rock-scissor-paper match seriously. There was a Christmas mass with my family and my brother (-rare- older cousin) in the majestic choir. There was that tasty Christmas Crab for dinner. There was the experience of being a Christmas decoration lightbulb - very amusing situation if you ask me - and a chance encounter with Barry Likumahuwa Project's live.

My essays? Of course I'm doing it, slowly. These pieces are partly the reasons for me extending my stay in Jakarta, so I can give a sensible reason to postpone whatever sleepovers my friends and I were organizing. Here I have peace and tons of inspiration, so hopefully I could finish them in time, and finish them well.

But more importantly, I am happy. This is a side of happiness that people often overlook or fail to appreciate, particularly after a given time in the rat race. Well, personality counts, of course, but if a person really lost the ability to appreciate a kind of happiness because of mere circumstances then that's really sad. Fortunate are those who know happiness and are willing to spread it around. Merry Christmas, blessed ones!