1:11:00 PM
I finally am able to sit down and really take my time to write. Not that I have a lot of time, though. I must sleep soon, for I need to wake up at 6 AM tomorrow and it's already 11 PM. I'm going swimming early tomorrow morning (i.e. avoiding the after-morning sun).

And so.. here goes my tales...

Before I write on the date basis, I'd like to point out the (almost) regular activities.
Since I'm the only one who does not drive here in Jakarta, I have to share a car & a driver with my mom. So 90% of the time, I go along with her to wherever she goes. Most of the time, we go to our second family's house at Tanah Abang, Center Jakarta.
{note:
my second family consists of Aunt Winny, Uncle Roy, Ontan or Alex, and Diana (with Frans, her husband, and Gaby, their daughter). The latter two are the first two's children. Aunt Winny, whom I call "Amam" (means "Mama" in a slightly unique way =P That's what her children call her. And they call their dad "Apam", meaning "Papa".) is my mom's bestfriend. In this journal, I would always call any member of my second family with the word "second" before the title (i.e. Amam or Aunt Winny is my second mom, Apam or Uncle Roy is my second dad, Alex is my older brother, Diana is my older sister -- from the 2nd family). As usual, the women are the closest to each other than the men. So I often come to their house, just hanging out or playing with Gaby (who is now 6 months old). We sometimes go somewhere together (usually only the ladies: myself, my mom, Amam, and Diana), frequently to eat.
end of note}
Along with my second mom and our friend (Siu Lie), we go swimming at President Hotel at least once a week. My mom usually would go along, but due to her condition, we prohibit her to swim (see reason below).

Here goes the dately basis.

Oct 3, 2002
Flew to Indonesia. Catherine, Mario, Bayu, and Marco accompanied me to the airport (thank you, my friends!). Was I excited? Not really. My head was full of worries. I just moved in to Pasadena, but I had to leave it almost right away. I had so many things to take care of (bills to be paid, apt + car + storage to be looked after, documents to be signed, etc), that I ended up leaving everything in Bayu's care, eventhough I felt guilty for asking too much help from him. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Oct 4, 2002
Went home to an empty house (except for the maid) around 4 PM. My grandma and her maid (who live at a house behind my house on the same block) picked me up at the airport along with the driver, so I didn't feel as lonely in the car. My brother was away on a camping event until Sunday, Oct 6. My parents had been in Singapore since Monday, Sept 30. My mom was hospitalized due to a stone in the kidney that had to be destroyed (by ESWL or Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy), because she had had numerous colics since two preceding weeks. The first lithotripsy failed, because the stone had moved out of the kidney. Therefore, in order to perform the second lithotripsy, the stone had to be moved back to the kidney. It was finally destroyed on the second lithotripsy. However, since she was given anesthetic twice within a one-hour range, there were several bad side effects she had suffered from after the 2nd surgery that took a few days to recover. My parents went back to Indonesia around 9 PM today.

Oct 5, 2002
Melly & Michael's wedding. Congratulations! =D

Oct 12-13, 2002
Helping the Inner Healing retreat team at Gadog. My first time as part of the team in Indonesia (last year I was part of the team in California). Happy desu yo :)
Karina, my colleague from Santa Ursula high school, who is now Ontan's girlfriend, came home from Sydney because of her sister's wedding next week. Ontan, Karin, Siu Lie, Melly, and Michael went to Gadog as well, filling the lack of youthfulness (because the participants of the retreat were mostly seniors this time =P).

It's already past midnight. I'd better go to sleep now. To be continued some other day...

4:05:00 AM
Writing from Indonesia... please add 14 hours to the current time displayed.
Oh, before anything: Happy Birthday, Marco! :)

Without fully realizing it, my going back to Indonesia this time gives me a lot of blessings, lessons about life, trials, and everything else I had rarely thought before. More about it later...
But really, it's so hard adjusting from DSL connection to 30K dialup connection *pouts*

I have to go now. Have a pleasant weekend, everyone!