6 months recap

Yoohoo! 6 months have passed without me posting anything after I reached home. I did not want people to know that I was back home and I decided to not even post anything on my facebook for 6 months. I even asked my mum and sisters to just lie to other relatives if they asked my whereabouts. I am back in Singapore since Monday and that is why I am writing something now. Hehe.. This is going to be a lengthy post since I will try to document all my thoughts from the past 6 months. Before I start, let me just post one final photo of my last quarantine meal just to complete the quarantine meal series.

Day 7 Breakfast

Family and Home

Family and home did not feel the same anymore after two years being away and the absence of my dad. I was alright with my sisters but it was initially awkward with my mum whom I blocked in Whatsapp. Well she clearly did not have her priorities right. Just imagine that the first thing she said when seeing me home was about settling the bank stuff instead of asking how I had been.

Now I sort of understand what is happening between my mum and my sisters. The root cause is simply because each of them is selfish and does not care about one another. It is ironic that each of them is guilty of  the things they complain about one another: messiness, laziness, food -just to name a few. They do not want to do certain things but expect others to do those things they dislike doing. Bleah. Everyday they are just taking turns to fight over the same issues. I failed to make things better as everyone is just too stubborn. There were many times I felt that I would rather be back in my loneliness in Singapore instead of listening to their repeated petty conflicts. However, at the end of the day, having family and home issues are still better than being homeless.

I was very annoyed with their cannot be bothered attitude about housekeeping. I spent my first Saturday home building a new laundry hanging rack. The old one was literally collapsing so I insisted on buying a new one. Noone cared about that since it is only my elder sister who is doing laundry. But there is no excuse for the rest of the living areas: leaking ceiling, cracking wall paint, unscrubbed bathtub and toilet bowl, unswept and unmopped floor, food debris on the dining table. Haiz. I was literally being the maid but I did not mind cleaning the areas which I used since I wanted to be clean. There were even lizards climbing to the dining table. Yucks. I bought lizard glue traps and there were close to 10 lizards being caught. Luckily my mum dared to throw away the glue traps with the trapped lizard. I did not even dare since the lizards could still wiggle around.

Still, I gave up in my last month home. I decided to just work in my room instead of the dining table. The last straw was it was barely a day after I cleaned the table and mopped the floor that my sister dropped food on the table and floor without cleaning. I never made noise asking people to clean but it pissed me off that when someone (i.e. myself) already cleaned, she could not even try to not make things dirty. Bloody hell. Since that episode until today, I refused to talk to her anymore.

Who would not get a shock seeing this living room?

I managed to keep it quiet and no other relatives knew I was home for those 6 months. Even when my uncle came to get my signature to settle my grandma's house in Pontianak, I just told my mum to say that she would DHL me the documents to sign.

Food

I did not have to go out at all to get lunch since it was cheaper to order food delivery with all the discount codes from the food delivery apps. I ordered lunch with my elder sister so there was no need to over-order for myself just to go over the minimum spending. Hehe.. I am not so picky about food (except that bone is an ultimate no no) and I only chose from the top promo or discount list. Luckily my elder sister was quite chill. She compromised with my no bone requirement while I compromised with her spicy preference. She also likes to try new restaurants so we could just go down the list to find something we never ordered previously. There were so many choices that after 6 months, I could count the number of restaurants which I had to repeat.

I still ate banana for dinner for most of the days. I did not have to buy since my younger sister got bananas from her office almost daily and she did not eat that. Still, overall I definitely ate more than what I regularly eat in Singapore since there was a tendency to try new things. In the end, I did not dare to weigh myself to see how much I gained after 6 months. Haha...

I was able to cut down my junk food significantly. Since I was working, I only had my Mie Jumbo on the weekends or holidays. Previously I would eat it daily when I was home but usually I was home for only 2 weeks at most. I cannot imagine what would happen to my health if I eat instant noodle daily for 6 months haha.. I also got bored of the potato chips rather quickly since there are only few brands and flavours which I enjoy (Chitato, Potabee, Kusuka, Qtela). After repeating those I liked once, I did not really have the urge to keep on buying.

My biggest surprise was finding Mix snack from Thailand and it is the Korean Spicy Chicken flavour which I knew from advertisement in Thai dramas which I watched last year during the COVID. It was not difficult deciding to buy since with the price tag of Rp 9000, it is comparable to the local potato chips I mentioned above. Sadly, the snack packaging is not the resealable type so I had to finish it at one go. I find it too spicy but the overall flavour is still good that I actually bought 3 times. Hehe.. Subsequently I found the other flavours (hot chili, chicky stick) from other supermarket but I did not like those because the fish sauce taste and smell were too overpowering. Next time I would be more careful with Thai snack and watch out those with fish sauce ingredients.

I only found the 'pack' version, not the container. This picture is chosen just because it has the actor promoting it.

Instead of potato chips, my 'addiction' changed to those cafe coffee/tea/milk drinks. Due to COVID, there were 1L options which were around $10.  I used 'addiction' because there were few which I order repeatedly. The rest was mainly trying new places with my sister. On average, we would order at least once a week and each 1L bottle was sometimes good for 3 days. I do not even buy bubble tea weekly here and I have stayed so long from Starbucks or Coffee Beans. I will be even more reluctant to buy them now. $10 for 1L bottle in Indonesia vs 1 large cup of Starbucks or Coffee Beans here. Haha...

Work

Thank God working from Jakarta was smooth. My home internet is fast enough and in 6 months, I only had to take leave for half day due to internet problem. I still followed Singapore working hours although it meant working from 7am to 4pm in Jakarta time.  My initial plan to exercise using my gym app after work, similarly to what I did during Circuit Breaker, totally did not happen. I always slept after work and woke up past 6pm. Obviously, this sedentary lifestyle made me even fatter.

I am really thankful for my boss and my boss' boss for not chasing me to return ASAP. Haha.. Anyway I still fulfilled my initial promise that it would be in Jakarta for 6 months at most. Although I did not want, I decided to get my Sinopharm booster in case of future vaccination discrimation again. To delay as long as possible, I only had it on last Friday of May thinking that getting a plane ticket back to Singapore should be similar to January when I also bought the ticket quite last minute. Well, COVID seemed to be over this time. The price for one-way ticket was $600-$700. Since I would be carrying 2 laptops and another hand carry with cookies, I was planning to do redemption for Business Class and it was all waitlist. That was a blessing in disguise since it meant I got to return 1 week later than initial plan when the ticket price started to become 'reasonable' around $200-$300. In the end, I redeemed First Class Saver for 27500 miles which was cheaper than 35000 miles for Business Class waitlist. Actually there were Business Class Saver (19000 miles) available but since initially I was already prepared to spend 35000 miles just for Business Class, 27500 miles for First Class seemed like a bargain. My First Class experience will of course be in another post.

Comics

121. That was the total number of comics which I had not read since the last time I went home 2 years ago. I only started reading them in the last 2 months when I sort of firmed up my plan to return to Singapore. Reading comics is still my favourite past time and the reason for the 'last minute' read was I completely ran out of storage space. Started reading them meant I had to keep them after reading. My cupboard is already full, my additional plastic drawers are full and the space underneath my bed is also full with those additional plastic drawers. Because of that, I restrained myself from getting new titles despite my initial interest of adding Demon Slayer to my collection.

I have a mixed feeling about the improved quality of Indonesian comics. The comics are now in bigger dimensions and printed with better quality paper which mean they are taking larger storage space now. With better quality, price increase is also unavoidable. At Rp 40000+ each, I do not think they can be considered cheap anymore. I honestly think the previous format was alright, except that in the past few years, they tried to cut cost by using ridiculously thin paper.

I finished reading all 121 plus the new releases when I was home. One thing that irritates me is by the time I have to leave, I only need 1 final volume of Attack on Titan. Grr...

Leisure

I actually had less leisure time as I spent more time to sleep. Perhaps calling it oversleeping is also not wrong. As mentioned, I only started chionging my comics in the last two months. I also watched less Youtube and I did not even follow Thai series that closely anymore. I also hardly went out unless necessary because I was too lazy to iron additional clothes I wore to go out. I was actually not that concerned about COVID when going to shopping malls. Even when the shopping malls were crowded, there was still plenty of space between people and it was never as packed as in the MRT or bus. I went to Bali during my birthday week but that will be for another post.

I also went to cinema for the first time in more than 2 years. I watched Fantastic Beasts: The Secret of Dumbledore in the Gold Class kind of cinema. I deliberately chose timing when people would be breaking fast to reduce COVID risk. There were only 4 people for the whole studio. Hehe.. The seats and studio were good, too bad there were no proper meals to order like in the Gold Class. Anyway so that I had an excuse to remove mask throughout the movie, I ordered the tidbits: dumpling and hotdog. The hotdog sauce made my fingers sticky which irritated me throughout haha.. Usually I would write a post after watching a movie but the movie is not memorable. It is almost 3 months now and nothing sticks to my mind about that movie. Lol. Fantastic Beasts franchise is just getting worse.

Prayer life

Previously I always stopped being a Catholic when I was home. It was different this time. It was a miracle that I was able to continue with daily rosary, weekly Novena and weekly Mass without fail. The weekly Novena was the most challenging for me since I ended up following them on the following week. However, I  did not do any of the Novena organised by the Rosary Confraternity. So overall I prayed less than if I were to be in Singapore but that is expected.

I am glad that I was able to somehow still participate with Landings. I made a good call to decline as a participant. Otherwise, I would not be able to join the gathering and the physical Mass since the COVID restriction was already loosened. I helped out with host/co-host Zoom duties. It was only stressful in the first two weeks but it got better subsequently after getting more familiar with the names. Hosting was definitely a chill job hehe.. The actual work was only during the first half an hour and the remaining time was just chit chatting with the other co-hosts until the sessions ended. Most importantly, I learnt new Zoom skills although most likely I forgot about them now. Haha..

I hate to complain about my bulletin duty but I am damn annoyed with some people for the past two editions. One made it difficult just for a freaking photo while another was super irresponsible by saying unable to do past her deadline. For goodness sake, why can't they just consider this as doing God's work instead of making things difficult. Yeah I am annoyed and am complaining now. The only thing stopping me from exploding or even stepping down from this role is just by seeing this as doing God's work.

Phone

I was planning to get a new phone: Samsung A22. I even prepared by getting screen protector and casing in advance. However, I decided to buy only the last week before I was about to fly. Sadly, the "COVID promotion" was already over by then. It was at the lower range of $200 when I decided to get it at the start of the year but it was near $300 when I checked at the stores last week. Bleah.. I cannot remember if the previous price was for the 4G model while now only 5G model is available. Since 5G is not widely available yet, then there is no point getting a 5G model. At the same time, 5G is just around the corner so it is not really making sense not to get 5G. In the end, since my current phone is still working well, there is no urgency to buy a new phone yet. Plus I recently bought a personalised casing for my current phone. Hehe...

Lousy quality but at least I have a Gundam Wing phone case :D

I suppose that is all for this 6 months recap. I think God really works in mysterious ways. I am very happy with the past 6 months home which would not happen if I did not change job 4 years ago. My dad's passing became the main excuse for me though I prefer to still have my dad :( I will write about Bali and my First Class flight experience soon. First Class story should be first since it is definitely shorter than Bali experience.