I once had a guy yelled at me, calling me 'bitch' when I didn't respond to his overture, apparently he wanted to talk to me. He was so persistent that I offered to talk to him at a 24/7 food stall that I was heading to, but he refused. Why the hell was I even giving him the chance to speak to me?

Let me set the scene. It was 2 AM, I was walking home from the cybercafe where I was working on a translation. He saw me and turned around to follow me. Here are my choices, either stop there to talk to him (not likely) or have him follow me home (hell no) so I offered to humor him but in a familiar space where everybody knows me and are friendly. 

He refused. So, I walked on and ignore him. He followed me again until I walked to the food stall where he left me yelling 'bitch' (not really, he called me a really nasty word in Indonesian-Javanese). The owner of the food stall asked me what was that about and I told him that the guy was following me so I'm gonna wait here for a moment just to make sure that he was gone. He shrugged and gave me a free iced milo. 

And of course, since all the people in the stall was male, 'they said that's why I shouldn't be walking in the middle of the night."

I opened my mouth to explain myself, would tell them about I had work, it only took five minutes to walk home, I know everyone that worked in the cybercafe, I know the people that worked in the 24/7 mini market that I always passed by, the road is brightly lit, and in the middle of the cafe to my house, there is this place who is always crowded by people, but then I shut my mouth realizing, I didn't NEED to explain to them, I didn't NEED to feel ashamed or embarrassed because I wasn't the one doing wrong. But that's the case with these kind of situations. The victim is the one to blame for being careless and stupid, not the perpetrator. There are always scumbugs in the world, and if you get screwed, it's your fault for not being vigilant enough. 

But it doesn't really work like that. I once rode a pedicab, in bright day light and this guy in a motorbike followed me, said hi and tried to talk to me. I ignored him, and then when he passed by me he actually stopped to wait for the pedicab to catch up and followed me right to my university. He waited for me when my class was over so I had to hang back for a while until he left. That's in bright day light. Then there are guys who like to act innocent and then brush up against me in public places. How the hell do I protect myself against that?

And I don't get the self-entitlement that goes with harassment, as if it is perfectly all right for them to accost me and feel insulted and offended when I don't feel inclined to speak with them. Even my mother told me to 'be nice and polite' so I wouldn't make things worst by antagonizing them. But being nice and polite as in eye contact is often mistakenly construed as encouragement and that's the opposite of what I want to do. 

Then of course, there's the whole other side of being (what other people consider) too vigilant. When you slow down your steps so the guy walking behind you will walk in front of you. When you refuse to go inside an elevator when a guy is inside it. When you ignore a guy who tries to talk to you on the street. When you refuse a ride from a guy you've only known for a couple of days. When you unconsciously shift away when a guy enters a space. And then they look at you or treat you as if they are offended by how you're 'overly cautious' with them. 

So, being 'overly cautious' means you're insulting perfectly good men who can't possibly harass you, and being 'careless' means you're asking for it. 

It's a damn if you do or damn if you don't do situation and the thought that most women experience this everyday pisses me off.

Recipe: Dessert: Soft Crepes

Should've made a better presentation of the goods but couldn't 'cause I was too hungry and the ice cream was melting. XD

Made this a couple of days ago for my sisters. It's already good without any filling, my sisters ate just as is but I prefer to eat it with ice cream.

Portion: 18-20

Ingredients

1. 4 eggs

2. 1/2 cup butter, melted

3. 1/3 sugar

4. 1 cup flour

5. 1 cup milk

6. 1/4 cup water

7. 1 tsp vanilla

8. dash of salt

Direction:

1. Mix all ingredients in blender except flour. Blend. Sprinkle in flour, blend. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Remove and blend for about a minute. Heat 8 inch skillet. Butter pan 1/2 tsp. 

3. Pour 1/4 cup of batter, thin layer. 

4. Cook for about 30 seconds/ or until edges lifted easy by spatula. flip. Cook again. 

5. Use wax paper between crepes. (Although, maybe because I used too much butter for the pan, the wax paper was unnecessary because the crepes didn't stick together)

Super duper yummy and easy to make!!!

Dreaming

It's funny how your subconscious works, I was dreaming and I was out at this desert-like world and our guide suddenly went still and we've learned to freeze when he does that. Evidently we were aware we were in danger because the electrical buzzing of generators went quiet, it was a sign, a warning before an attack by--don't remember, anyway, that's when I woke up and realize that there was a blackout in RL and the fact that the silence of generators was actually my brain noticing the lack of sound from my fan.


Plus, when 10 years ago I would think my guide as old, since I'm 31 now, I thought of him as hot. LOL. ‪#‎dreaming‬ ‪#‎doingitright‬

So, a lot of things have happened last month.

Nanowrimo is over--I won!- but the novel is still messed up and I'm switching between 'Till Death Do Us Not Part and DreamWalkers. 

A friend of mine from high school died and like always I'm still waiting to feel something for that since I have a bad habit of suppressing things, it's like I try to hard not to react to things immediately that I usually have delayed reactions to emotional things. It helps when we have an emergency, I could concentrate more on what needs to be done and think rationally but afterwards I always find myself questioning 'wow, is this it? Is this all the emotion I can spare?' then I'm left feeling like I'm a cold, heartless bastard. 

That's how I'm feeling right now. 

I mean, what's the big deal? It's only a high school friend that you haven't even see for 10 years or more. You haven't even talked to her or messaged her or even chatted on facebook. You might ask me that. 

But you don't understand. We were a trio, we were close all through high school. Maybe it's because she'd been sickly that I didn't feel surprise when I heard she died. Maybe this is coarse of me, but all I felt was relief, that she wouldn't slip in and out of comas and feel pain anymore. 

When my sister got into a really bad accident and both my parents were worried and crying, I was like 'okay, what can I do?', not even a hint of worry entered my mind. All I asked was, "Will she be okay?" and then I'm good. 

It's like when something happens, my mind immediately jumps to logic mode. I guess that's a good thing. But I'm thinking one of these days, I'd just break. 

Moving on.

Most people who knows me, knows that I'm a big advocate for learning outside of school. I mean, learning in school is great but you can't really focus on what you're actually interested on but lately, as I read and write and watch educational videos, never have I felt the gaping hole in my school curriculum.

I mean, let's take language for instance, in most countries in junior high they've taken to discussing novels by inspirational authors both domestic and internationally. We didn't, we were still studying about punctuation,  and structure.

We're just so behind on everything! We have no elective subjects, and my school was one of the best with extra funding.

Why couldn't they have given us more of a challenge?

I feel the lack of it now, you know, when I talk with people outside my country and I have to look up the things they're talking about and yes, it's great that I'm learning but it also makes me feel how lacking I've been.

As a writer, you have to know things, you have to know a lot of things and when you don't, you do research but in order to research you kind of have to actually know what it is you're looking for--and because of my lack of foundation, I often do not.

It's frustrating. 

Kittens, Knitting and Dry Eyes.

Kittens, named, Baby and Boo is healthy. I have them on soft foods now and weaning them off milk and they're doing fine. Baby, the little one, was sort of listless the first few days but she's getting pretty frisky as her brother Boo. 

Will deworm them next. In the afternoons they sleep in my room while at night she sleeps in the kitchen where it's warm. 

I try not to get them use to sleeping on my bed, but today, they insisted on taking a nap with me. I think they were cold because they burrowed into my hair. Some people have fleas, I have kittens. 

They purred into my ear, distracting me from my reading and my current crocheting project. 

But look at them. Baby is in the front and Boo is at the back. Her soft paws petted me as she slept. Cute. 

These are some pictures I took when I was armknitting. It looks pretty restrictive right?

My sleeping habits are pretty human-like now and less vampire but I still get headaches now and then. Methinks it's because I'm straining my eyes. Due to that I'm going to rest my eyes for a few days and maybe exercise and drag my ass out of the house for a bit. 

I need to buy bread and yarn anyways. Might as well. 

So, I'm moving again.

This will be the third time I'll be moving in a year. Geez.

Glad for the move though, finally I would have time to write full time.

Speaking of writing, guess what? It's NOVEMBER which means NANOWRIMO.

Gah, I'm such a masochist.

To make matters worst I decided to pull out DreamWalkers from the idea book and though I have some idea about what it's about, I'm pretty much winging it at this point. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad one.

Well, at least I'm writing.

There were things that happened which brought several questions to the front of my mind, certain doubts if you will, that made me rethink about the big decisions that I made in the last 10 years. 

And though I don't regret that I made them, I regret the consequences that the people around me had to live with because of it. It's strange to say it, but the bottom-line is I feel guilty for not feeling guilty enough.

...only humans would be this complicated, right?

Other than a little cough and feeling a little lazy and sluggish, I'm good. I hope that things would only get better from now. 

Funny.

Yesterday, people actually commented twice on how silent I move.

I wonder what that was about?

Is it done out of an unconscious desire to be left alone, a self-defensive manuver so I don't attract to much attention?

Is it the fact that I spent years of dancing on the balls of my feet? Or because I've been fat most of my life and I'm very aware of every creak and stomp that would draw people to the size of my body?

Weird.

This song make me miss my mom

6th day of work

I'm dead.

My senior at work, the one who I have to learn from was sick. So I had to do all the work by myself. It was a slow day but it was still quite busy.

And most of the time it was because I have no clue what to do.

Ugh. I didn't even get to break at lunch because I was so busy.