What I Want to Do in 2013

Earlier this year my cousin A asked me what is my new year resolutions. But I can’t really answer that question. Of course as a normal human being, I want to have a better year compared to previous year. In fact I want an awesome year!

But, what kind of awesome year?

It took me almost a month to figure out some concrete things I want to achieve this year. Here’s the list.

 

I want and I have to:

  1. Read Bible everyday.
  2. Drive an hour a day, at least 4 days a week.
  3. Write in my blog at least once a week.
  4. Wake up and sleep early, and avoid naps during afternoon. Try my best to expand my ‘effective hours’.
  5. Enroll myself into international competitions (and hopefully win some).
  6. Publish my educational games
  7. Start going out to do adventure once again, at least around my hometown.
  8. Write and publish books. I hope I can publish 2 (or 3 or more) books this year.

 

Well, so far I’ve fulfilled 2 out of 8 things on above list. But still, I have to work really hard if I want to achieve all things by the end of this year. There are many things on that list that needs persistence and consistency. I can fail anytime if I get careless.

Other than that, this year I need to pay attention to my emotion, my attitude. My body is getting older, but my emotion is somewhat behind. Although I kind of sad when realizing that my emotional problem has become obstacle for me to achieve greater things in the past. I glad that realizing this problem now has giving me opportunity to catch up and improve myself into a better person.

Hopefully I can direct my thoughts into more positive ways and focus on achieving my goals, and finally have an awesome year!

 

Cheers,

Winnie Tjahjana

FF : Fish Funeral

When I was a little kid, probably around 2 years old, my first pet was a fish. Our family named it Alendut after an Indonesian word gendut, shortened as ndut, which is simply means fat or chubby.

Unfortunately, while I was living in Melbourne due to my father master studies, Alendut misteriously died. So, my grandmother buy another fish which looks really similar to the previous one, therefore begins the life of Alendut II (read : Alendut the Second), which the little me thought it was my Alendut, not a new one.

As I grow older, moved town , go to school, and have more friends, I started to lose interest on my pet fishes, or simply any other pet animals. Until recently my cousin A come to stay with us, and she started to pay attention to our fishes in the backyard pond. Therefore, here I am, two decades after, started to notice my pet fishes once again because my cousin A do so.

However, recently  started from around 2 months ago, some mysterious disease struck our pond, and some of our fishes get severely sick. They started to swim upside down and stop moving for quite a long time, they seems have some trouble with breathing as well, because the gills open wider than normal.

Eventualy, one of the fish died last year , on November 24th, 2012, and we decided to hold some funeral for this fish. Shortly before it’s death my cousin A named the fish Esmer Victoria Secret Tjahjana. Esmer after one of her friend, Victoria Secret after her bra which became crumpled after some wrong washing procedure.

Fish 02

We hold some procession before burying the fish, giving some last words while some specially chosen music playing  in the background.

Fish 03

Afterwards, we bury the dead body in a flower pot, planted some leaves and adding tomb-signage.

Fish 01

 

After burying Esmer Victoria Secret, we thought that all other fishes will be okay, since they were healthy for a full month. Until just recently, we found that two other fishes start showing similar symptoms. In order to save other healthy fishes, we put both of them on quarantine, one bucket each.

My cousin A tried to find some diagnosis for these fishes through Google, she suspects that these fishes got some problems on their swimming / floating organs which is probably caused by constipation. Clueless about how to cure constipation on fishes, my mom try some traditional method on curing the fish, by sprinkling some salt into the water. On the other hand my father took more experimental attempt by giving them few drops of betadine.

Regardless of our attempt, two days ago,  my cousin A found that one of the sick fishes were no longer moving nor breathing. Then she named the dead one Turuncu Benekli Kocaman Tjahjana, which is in Turkish means big orange spotted. Meanwhile, I named the one that still struggling  Seger Waras Tjahjana, which in Javanese means fresh and healthy, based on a traditional Javanese belief that a good name may help it survived.

In the end, the next morning Seger Waras Tjahjana finally joined its two other pond-mate to swim in the big pond in the sky. Rest in peace my fishes, my friend, hope you enjoy your next swim.