March 2006 Archives

off to the island of sabang tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock. three days of relaxing, finally. god knows i need it.
stressing out about money... it sucks.
but anyway, see you on monday, when i'll hopefully be a lot more relaxed!!!

today is a miserable day, stress-wise and rain-wise. i thought the rainy season was over, dammit! i wanted to go see nicolo' who is sick to escape from the office, but i guess not.
things are getting complicated and stressful and as usual i have no idea of what my destiny is - in the sense of what's going to happen to me. complications, complications, at least for once they're not caused by me.
formatted my laptop (well, it's not MY laptop, it's the laptop i use here) yesterday which gave me a lot of satisfaction. shame i lost my favourites (forgot to save them) and this really useful garzanti italian-english dictionary the previous owner had installed. sniff sniff. i need a dictionary and the free ones i could find really suck.
the trip with my mum and my aunt in may seems to be organised. is it gonna happen or not? if it does, it will be amazing. laos seems so beautiful, and i'll be spending a week by the mekong - just saying that makes it cool.
at the moment i have a certain feeling of affective deficiency (carenza affettiva???). i just want someone who hugs me from behind to kiss my neck or holds my hand when i watch a film. and takes the piss out of me when i cry at the end of a film and then kisses away tears. little things like that. at the same time i could not bear the idea of a relationship so i think i'll have to do without. but still. i don't even care about sex, i just i want a friend with whom i can be touchy-feely... sigh.
all of the relationship thinking disappears when i think of oxford though. even though it will be hard coming up with the money... oxford, oxford.
gonna go do some work ah?

so, am staying until end of june, it's almost official, and i'm even getting some sort of salary which is nice. will be enough to pay for my trip afterwards... so everything is good from that point of view.
then there's oxford. soas is fucking about with this form they need to fill out and send me back so that i can apply for scholarship. but i don't care, i'm so happy i'm going. oxford, can you believe it? one of the best universities in the world... i feel so lucky. i've spent my days downloading maps and photos and trying to find out what college they could put me into - i'm hoping it'll be wolfson since the head of the development studies department is there and it's all postgrad, which means some peace and quiet to study... and it is nice, modern buildings but on the lake with these amazing sceneries. mmmh. i can't wait. six months and i'll be there.
in other news, i got sick and tired of being the lazy slob i am and realised that if i don't take control of my body now i never will, i need to be healthy and well, i seriously need to lose weight cause i've put on 4 kgs. so yesterday i went running with aron; in the end i mostly walked, for about 30 minutes (and nicolo' joined me half way through) and got home wet with sweat and very happy and energetic... so today i did some exercises on aron's mat and then went walking ('happy' walking, as in quite quick) with philippa for an hour. i'm also trying to be careful with what i eat - low fat milk, as little rice/bread as possible and trying to eat more proteins. hopefully i'll get some results... in any case i feel happy - there's this weird sense of satisfaction in having all of your muscles ache.
and to reward myself, i'm going to get some clothes made every now and again - last sunday i went crazy, went to market, bought $50 worth of fabric (which is a lot, i can assure you) and then went to the tailor... so this sunday i'll have three new skirts (two made with cotton sarongs and one made with a silk one), four pairs of trousers, five shirts (two silk and three sarong) and three bags! and in the end i only spent about $100, which really isn't a lot considering how many clothes i'm getting. i can't wait. there's nothing like clothes to make a girl happy. ;)
my mum might come visit me in may when i'll have to leave indonesia to renew my visa - but i can't decide where we should go. she doesn't want to go to cambodia (she went there with my dad last year) or malaysia (nothing so interesting to see from a cultural point of view)... laos is a bit complicated but i'm trying to work out a way to go. we could spend two days in bangkok and then 4 or 5 in laos... but i have the passport issue to deal with - in the sense that i also need to get my visa renewed and that takes a couple of days!!! so annoying. i'll work out something.
could go watch a movie now... in my nice little room which now looks like a hotel room because i've moved everything. i'm too girly, seriously. i can't believe i get excited about things like that...

look at this picture.
see those two numbers there?
the first one is the number of people who apply to the mphil in development studies at oxford every year. 240.
i am one of them.
the second one is the number of people who actually get accepted to do the mphil in development studies at oxford every year. 30.
I. AM. ONE. OF. THEM.
so in six months' time i will be moving into halls in oxford i guess? :)

ok, let me clarify my position here and this whole job question...
i am working as information officer for an italian ngo; in practice i do all sorts of things, from writing press releases, project updates, reports, making websites, preparing leaflets, sending emails for about half of the expats, organising documents, emails, etc. and about every other odd job in the world. which is absolutely great because it means i'm getting to know all of the projects here (there's 5 at the moment), successes, failures and pretty much everything else.
apart from boredom (which i do cope with quite well though), i really like it here. the nature is amazing and the people even more so. i love most of the people i work with, both expat and local, they're all a lot of fun and extremely professional without being too serious or boring.
so these are pros. the cons?
at some point i will get bored to the point of explosion; but that can be easily remedied by taking a week's holiday, bali, java, cambodia, don't know yet. so this is easy to solve.
there are a couple of people i don't really get along with. things have been better lately though. so it seems like that would be ok too.
the only con that is NOT easily solvable is that i miss home. and with home i mean my parents, my friends and london. and having my own place. but these are things i can cope with considering the pros, at which i DO have to add how good it would be for my CV and the money. i have to be logical and practical too, you know, and i have to face up to the fact that having 8 months working for an ngo in my CV sounds a lot better than 4-5, and it WILL help considering what i want my next moves to be (apply for MA at big uni such as oxford or LSE).
maybe i am following my head a bit more than i am following my heart, but i feel like i need to act like an adult. i have responsabilities towards myself most of all, and right now i need to focus on my career. i need to get it sorted out, you know.
i have considered all factors, i want everybody to know that. i'm not just here for the CV or the money but i'm also not just here 'to help the poor people'. i think making either of these affirmations would make me a hypocrite.
so yep. there you go.
other than that, i have now watched 'pride & prejudice' twice in three days. it's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. shame it has not been nominated for best film at the oscars. maybe i'm loving it also because i have just finished reading the book... :)
'brokeback mountain' was so-so. a bit heavy. i mean, i think it will win, just because of the subject. i don't think it's the best film around (i still am completely in love with 'crash'), but overall it's ok.
i've also watched 'hustle & flow', which has been nominated for the music. slightly too ghetto for my own taste (all about pimps, tricks and drugs) but not bad; '8 mile' style. maybe a new trend?
i'm trying to follow up on my plan to watch as many films nominated at the oscars as possible but now i'm kind of stuck, only got 'munich' left to watch. need to go to banda aceh to pick up some more dvds!!! damn.
gonna go watch 'the oc'. on dvd of course. :)

bought this box of chai from the coffee shop in banda aceh; stupidly expensive (10 dollars) but definitely worth it... and it's lovely, with locally produced honey in it. mmmh.
decided to watch brokeback mountain after reading jana's comments on it. so we'll see...
but i'm keeping away from the real issue here: will i stay or not? i haven't received a reply from milan yet, but what i'm thinking is - they cannot dare denying me the money or the flight or anything else. it's not just the head of mission who wants me here, but also the bloody director!
but if i stay... last week i thought i couldn't wait to go away. now i see it a whole lot differently. apart from the fact that i'd be earning some money, it would be SO good for the CV and in terms of experience as well... 8 months working for an NGO in aceh, come on. it'd help me get into the masters i want to do; and the work is interesting, i like the people... it's a bloody big thing, because it will mean 9 months or more away from home, but... i can't let this chance go. i've actually started thinking in terms of career, you know.
am i not all grown up ah? :)
in the last couple of days i've also tried to eat less and keep count of calories, cause i really wanna lose these four kilos i've put on in the last two months. i think i need to start going running or something though, cause i do even less exercise here than i did before, dammit. i walk to the office, that's pretty much it, and the office is 20 meters away!!! so yep, i need to start thinking about it, also because i've been smoking way too much and i feel like i need to be healthy. which is why i'm also trying to drink 2 liters of water or more a day... shame it makes me pee literally every 30 minutes. sigh.
my ipod is completely gone, can't listen to music anymore because it doesn't read it - thank god i managed to backup everything using ephpod. now i'm trying to download the ipod updater thingy, which is taking forever considering i'm on dialup and it's 45 mb... argh. already spent the whole of yesterday downloading itunes...
i'd say overall i'm pretty relaxed though. whether i stay or i go... i'm happy with what i'm doing, i'm happy i've been good at what i've done since i've been here. i'm proud, you know. i'll get somewhere, and that's all i needed to know to feel better about everything.