Living in Bali & Malaysia

We’ll I haven’t wrote in here for a while, a lots of stuff has happened since. I am currently living in Bali, Indonesia. And it’s hot as hell. I’ve been busy though. Since we’ve been here I been working as a freelance ghostwriter. I’ve also seen lots of gorgeous places around the island; The Fire Dance, Sanur, Kuta, Seminyak, Ubud, Bedugal, and just about everywhere in between South Bali and Lovina.
I’m homesick from time to time. But, overall it’s been lovely in Bali. The sun is almost always out now that raining season has passed. That’s got its pros and cons. For one, it’s hot… but luckily we don’t have hot water!
I think there is a ghost in my house. I’m serious too. I honestly think that our home is haunted, and I do not know what to do about it. Like the other day I went to the bathroom late at night before brushing my teeth. (I have to exit the bathroom to get to the sink by the way, it’s near the stairway) and I felt this really weird presence. I brushed my teeth in a hurry, and turned around defensively, as if I was going to challenge the entity or something. Well… needless to say, I felt scared and I felt it wasn’t friendly.
Then, my daughter woke up in the middle of the night crying while I was writing. She began following something in the ceiling and for a second her cries ceased… then they started up again… then she caught glimpse of something in the air… and stopped. So… it was weird because I didn’t see anything.
I may very well be a bit too superstitious, which is probably what it is. I mean for goodness sakes… look at me? I am like one of the biggest skeptics of the supernatural as it is, but don’t challenge me! I’ll crawl into my sheets and pretending to sleep until sunrise. I’m such a wimp.
Bleh!
I’ll follow up again… eventually, but in the meantime… take a look at this awesome pic I took in Bedugal!

Lost in Translation

Okay, so me and the family relocated back to Batam Indonesia temporarily. The goal is to accumulate enough money to make a decent living off of a decent investment. The cost of living here is cheap so our income is higher than our expenses finally, ha! I make money by affiliate marketing and improving SEO. I cannot do it by myself so I hired a girl here to do data entry and advertising for me. It’s not too complicated of a job. All she really has to do is copy and paste all day long. Anyway I really began to see how easily things can become “Lost in Translation” here. I communicate with her through typing what I want to say in English and then inserting it into Google translator and emailing her or sending an instant message with instruction. She was having some difficulties the other day and I sent her a message saying, “Having any luck with the job?” and she responded by saying, “What do you mean I am lucky to have this job?” I felt horribly and hopefully I succeeded in giving a proper apology.

It gets worse than that however. She finally got the job down and was able to navigate through websites with ease. I’ve even come across some of her listings by doing a basic search in google. I wanted to show her my appreciation and I wrote out a letter telling her she was doing a good job because I found her online advertisement on myadmonster.com. My dad called me back to the office and asked me what is it that I want her to do. I looked at the email they were looking at and I told him I didn’t want her to do anything new and that it was simply a letter letting her know she was on the right track. He seemed surprised, he said “Really? Because it says that she did something big online and you just saw a monster.” I couldn’t help but laugh because … well, it was funny.
Brittany has this habit of saying “Hella good” and my dad overheard this. I don’t think he honestly heard it right because I was eating these Japanese Noodle Snacks that were “Hella Good” but he wanted me to try something different. He walked in the door with this cheese wafer type thing and when I was about to say I was full he interrupted me with “What the hell good!” I thought he was mad at first and ate it real fast before he said, “That’s what you guys say. It’s what the hell good.” I had thought he was angry and took it out on me by making me eat this weird cheese stick, which actually was, “What the hell good!”
There have been other not so great examples of bad communications and the struggle against language barriers. For example, I am learning plenty of Bahasa and Hokkien but that doesn’t matter because I am far from fluent. So I told Brittany that when she needs something from the maids to use body language. I wanted her to tell the maid to spray her room for mosquitoes but she didn’t know how. I instructed her to make a little fly with a finger, buzzing around merrily, and with the other hand use it as a spray. Motion as though the finger that is the mosquito is now falling to the floor after the spray motion. I added sound effects as well so they could hear the obvious change in buzzing. She tried this, but they ended up getting confused and brought her a needle and thread.

When Mike took his mother to Bali, I stayed behind with Ian and Iniya. I just cannot part with my babies while they are so young. Anyway, one day I was on the computer and I noticed a mouse running through my bedroom. I couldn’t believe it and I thought for certain it would chew up the wires behind the television. Ian and Stefany, my sister, were with me. I drew up a photo of me, sitting on my laptop, drew a mouse, and then drew me, Ian and Stefany screaming. I took it down to one of the maids. She said, “Ohhh!” Ran into a room then came back out and said no. I figured she just didn’t want to help with the issue so I went back upstairs and sat, doing nothing for quite some time. After a while I got the attention of another maid and she saw the mouse too. She came back with a broom, seen it, struck the wall, screamed and backed off and repeated this until someone else arrived. Unfortunately, a young man came in, my dad’s store clerk and he did something fatal to the mouse. It was sad and I almost regretted mentioning I seen it in the first place. Well the first maid came back upstairs and finally realized what was going on. Apparently, she thought I was complaining about a toy and she had told me she had not seen it.
This is just an outline of the communication challenges we meet here each day. Super fun! As you can see, I’ve included some recent pictures of us here in Batam for the last month and a half.

Our Last Days in Merced

In November of 2009 we relocated from Antelope, Ca to Merced, Ca. I was born and raised in Merced so I was entering familiar territory. To be honest, wasn’t too excited about the move. Merced is a smaller community with a relatively bad review. I have to admit that this time around it exceeded my expectations. I am sad to be leaving so much that it almost brought me to tears today.

Ian’s school seemed horrid at first. Kids were always in the office bad mouthing the staff, fighting, and just being typical brats. I was also insecure because my son has had troubles with speech in school and I feared he would experience ridicule from his peers. I didn’t like his teacher because he was sent home with a naughty note because he needed extra help. I even went the extra mile of having a meeting with her to scold her on her tactics. She felt horrible and changed the name of the form sent home to communicate with parents. Nevertheless, I feared that moving Ian from Antelope was a huge mistake on my part.
Five months later, I take back everything I thought of Charles Wright. My son started school there unable to retain the sounds of the alphabet. Now, he can read and write. He knows so many science facts that I learn something new from him each day. His teacher was the first teacher ever to seek me out in a crowd to tell me my son is amazing. He had enormous growth there. He excels in Math but always has. Recently he was given a project of having to create a Math Kite where he is given a number and he has to come up with equations to equal out to that number. He was given the number 1. Most kids did things like 3-2=1 or 6-5=1 but Ian did 200-99-99-1=1 all on his own.

His teacher was so sad on his last day. Her eyes filled with tears and she told me of how proud she was of him. I hugged her for quite a long time. Ian cried too because he was losing his favorite teacher and the great friends he had made at Charles Wright Elementary. She is such a great teacher who really does care about all the children she teaches. After giving her a chance I must say she is the best first grade elementary school teacher I have ever met.
Brittany has made lots of friends. She didn’t do so well in school but she is happy in this community. She says when she finally turns 18 she wants to move back here to start her life, opposed to Sacramento, which is a shocker I am sure.


It’s also hard because this is the first house that Iniya ever lived in. The house I turned a perverted male blow up doll into a memorable Valentine’s Day for my husband… (okay, that sounds weird but it was a joke). I feel were all happy here, or at the very least comfortable and content. I’ve grown close to my step dad. We love him. I haven’t had a chance to spend much time with my mother who just graduated college for the second time last night.

Obviously because she has been busy but it is nice being near her. Our cat Jakarta loves this house. I reconnected with old friends. We made a couple new friends. It’s just sad to be leaving Merced again.

So, where are me and my family going? We’re going back to Batam, Indonesia to stay with my father. The economic crisis took a toll on the Limousine business. I am going back to school to get my Bachelor’s in Business Administration with a concentration on Global Business Management (online classes). I will then be applying for an MBA program in California in a year or so. We’re going to save money while were there so we can reinvest in something that will work. Iniya, Ian, and Brittany will get a chance to see other parts of the world (Ian already has), exposure to different cultures, language, etc. It is priceless experience. They will get to know my father’s side of the family, our customs, our history, etc. It is still so sad to go. I have my concerns, my forever endless list of concerns… but I guess there are pros and cons to every situation. I just hope that when we come back we can settle into a stable and successful life. I love all of my family so much and I know these changes are not easy on everyone.

Honey Moon

This post is just to recap on some events that had passed this 2010 for me but I got a bit too busy to blog about. As I mentioned in previous posts, me and Mike became husband and wife December 2010. We couldn't really go on any kind of extravagant honeymoon because I was quite far into my pregnancy. Cruises were out and flights were out. They have requirements as far as pregnancy progression and most carriers do not want you to travel off land if you are beyond 25 weeks gestation. Las Vegas was out because of all the inside smoking and plus that is more of a "party" place in my eyes. Some place you may want to go if you are NOT pregnant and able to drink alcohol and watch boob shows. Anyway, me and Mike decided to do a California beach tour and visit Tijuana Mexico. We visited Venice Beach, Hollywood, San Diego, Morrow Bay, and Tijuana Mexico. Mexico turned out being much worse than Vegas by the way. Being the open minded person that I am and curious about the reputation that Tijuana had accumulated I suggested we visit a gentleman's club. I had to run to the bathroom and on the way to the ladies room I noticed approximately 3-4 nude females dancing on the table. Once I was done using the bathroom, Mike jumped at me and prompted me out of the area. Once we were out of there he told me that a stripper had come up to him tried to grab his croch and then tried rubbing her breast in his face. He told her to stop and she said that he needed to at least tip her. He stated that he had not asked her to do those things and since she had reached out to him that she should tip him. She became angry and threatened to make a phone call. He dared her to do so and I guess that was the end of it. Who knows the reality of the situation but either way I am confident enough to not read into it too much. We only stayed in TJ for the day and returned the following day for shopping. Not a whole lot went on but we extended our vacation and beach visits for a week. I guess the highlight or most interesting place to visit was Venice Beach and Morro Bay (my choices).

Iniya Pau Ng

Iniya Pau Ng
NOT PRONOUNCED "IN-YA PAW NIG"
CORRECTLY PRONOUNCED "EH-NIGH-YUH POW UNG"
THANK YOU!!!
Long story cut very short:
During the summer of 2009 I found out I was pregnant. Around 16 gestation I found out that I would be having a daughter. My pregnancy went very well, I was healthy. I gained a total of 25 lbs and had no problems with any of the prenatal testings. My son Ian was very excited to be having a sister and many members of my family were looking for to meeting this child growing inside of me.

Me and Mike got married in Merced County. It was a small court house ceremony but I was heavy in pregnancy and wasn't wanting to plan and go through a formal wedding at the time. We will be planning an actual wedding, and you bet I am getting the Bachelorette party of my dreams! We became an expectant married couple December 15, 2009.
To be quite honest, I hated being pregnant. I hated it to the core. I am so glad it is over and so very proud to be her mother. I am so happy to have my daughter here and the influence on my life is tremendous. I love her, she takes my breath away. Each and every day I feel myself falling more in love with her as I had with my son Ian.
This is her birth story:
On February 18, 2010 your father and I headed to Modesto for an ultrasound appointment. Once there the Perinatologist discovered that there was the amniotic fluid was running quite low and felt it was in your best interest to be born. He wrote a recommendation to have labor induced. We drove to Sutter Roseville Labor & Delivery Department to be induced. The staff was reluctant to induce the labor due to the doctor not being linked to their hospital. The on call doctor decided to go ahead and honor the recommendation and induce me that evening. At approximately 5 pm they broke the amniotic sac. Very little fluid seemed to leak. The contractions were slow to start but once they introduced pitocin they began to peak up dramatically. The contractions grew very intense and before low I was unable to tell when one contraction started and another contraction began. I was reluctant to ask for pain killers at first but after experience the full throttle labor I begged the nurse to administer something. Initially she gave me something through the IV. This had absolutely no effect at first and then the pain began to only get worse. The nurse gave me a second dose of this drug and still no effect was felt. She called the anesthesiologist to issue an epidural. I suffered through almost another hour of excruciating contractions. The anesthesiologist finally got there and began the epidural process. The epidural took some time to work and perhaps ten minutes passed before the nurse decided to check my cervix again. I was suddenly 10 cm dilated and it was already time to push. I could barely feel the urge to push at all but the nurse would notify me when I was having a contraction. In approximately four short pushes you were out! The doctor put you on my chest and you screamed. Iniya Pau entered the world on February 18, 2010 at 10:51 pm, weighing in at 5 lbs 15 oz and 17 inches in length.

Me After giving birth!


We brought her home and she is currently 2 weeks old. She is beautiful and such a great baby.

Quick Summer Update: Asia & Raft Accident

So a lot has happened since the last time I wrote in this blog... a whole lot. I find myself back in the United States... only working towards going back to Asia. I came back to the USA and met Mike. Who is Mike? He is my boyfriend of a total of five months so far and we have already had tons of good times together.
After we decided to commit to an exclusive relationship we went to visit my father in Asia. Mike intended to ask my father for my hand in marriage. It was done and accepted. My father paid for us to take a trip to Bali and also ensured that we had lovely wedding portraits for when we have our wedding in the states. It was a great trip and I was very excited for Mike to meet my father and see where I had been living for the last year. He also got to meet my extended family in Asia as well as my siblings. I think what shocked Mike the most was the traffic in Jakarta. Many people living in poverty ask for money by walking through traffic begging. There is also many cars that struggle to just find room on the highway.



A few weeks back we were in a rafting accident and I swore the man was dead. It was about nine of us on the raft going down the Sacramento river. I had drank a few cups of wine so I was relatively relaxed on the river. The current got stronger during one point and the rafts thrashed around quite a bit and a small BBQ pit landed on my lap. While struggling to get it off of me I was thrown into the river. I desperately struggled to get back onto my raft, and luckily I succeeded. It was a mellow cruise from there until we hit even harder rapids. The problem was that we had used a rope to link about 6-7 cheap rafts together, so the entire thing was very unstable. As the rapids got harder, we drew closer to this island in the middle of the river. Tree branches rose from the water, ripping at the rafts. The strong current along with the strong rapids threw our rafts into the island. I heard Mike yell and I looked back and he was thrown from his doughnut. The rest of the crew landed safe and we worked to pull ourselves onto the island. Mike was still no where and sight and due to the condition of the waters, we grew concerned. I remember looking across the water and sizing it up to see if I could possibly swim across and get help. I knew I would not make it and no one else was willing to put their lives at risk either. So it looked like we would just stay there until the rangers found us and got us help. Being that it was summer we were lucky enough to get sighted. Myself and Brittany were pretty much in tears for fear that Mike was in danger. Well it turned out we were resuced and there was approximately 4 news crews there to see us and film the incident. They made me look like an idiot on Television. The story showed the newscaster telling me "You are NOT going to win this arguement!" I was stunned because I had no idea what he was talking about but it looked like he was implying we were in some sort of debate before the cameras came on.
Mike was actually rescued before we were. He swam to shore but on the opposite side of where he needed to be. Overall, we ended up being okay. Least now we know even the adults need life jackets. Unfortunately, the next day a man who was trying to get his horse to cross the water ended up dying in the same area....

Extra Terrestrial Possibilities

I logged onto the Internet today and found an interesting article. Unfortunately I can't share anything about it because I am having difficulty relocating it. Anyway basically they found that another Galaxy much resembled our own Milky Way the way it had looked millions of years ago. Wish I could give you an exact estimate but again, I can't relocate that article. I also saw an article stating that there has been 1,000 UFO sightings reported in the USA this year alone. Unbelievable.

There has been other countries pressuring the USA to release and address information about their findings on international television. Other nations seem like they're ready, they're just waiting on us. So why would be holding back on information like this? If you ask me because they don't want to send the human population into total chaos. Also I think the USA probably has a lot of access to extra terrestrial technology that they haven't yet figured out and don't want it released to other countries, just in case they are able to figure it out first. Of course this would be like handing a lap top computer with full Internet access to Thomas Edison.

Take the Roswell incident for example. In 1947 there was an aircraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico USA. By standers and many eye witness claim to have seen an alien aircraft and the bodies of alien life forms both remains and living forms emerge from the craft after the crash. The USA government rushed down picked up all the evidence, tucked it away nice and neat, then made the claim it was some experimental surveillance balloon. The first newspaper article read truth from what was seen by hundreds of spectators! The following day the newspaper printed the government cover up story.

If you look up information on Alien Space Craft crashes, sighting, abductions, etc. you're probably going to see some sort of USA Government cover up. They simply have procrastinated long enough.


Take this video sent in from the Mexican government in 2004! Apparently, other countries are getting fed up and the issue needs to be addressed. There are tons of other very intriguing evidence. Of course there is a tremendous amount of B*ll Sh*t you will just need to do the filtering.

Now I am just going to answer some questions and make responses to common statements. Not that I am an expert because I obviously am not but I like giving my two cents. Just some common things I have heard get brought up in the past about the possibility of extra terrestrial life forms.

"They're going to kill us! Those they don't kill, they will enslave! We must prepare for battle!" Okay the above statement, which I am sure you heard before too. Sounds absolutely ridiculous. If they were going to kill us they would have done it by now. As far as enslaving us? Hmmm, let's think about ourselves here. Okay, as we know we have a pretty tremendous history of enslaving one another and forcing each other to do our bidding. As time goes on through the industrial revolutions, social revolutions, etc have we not seen a huge decline in slavery? A huge decline in the need of manpower? Yes we have and it is due to the fact we replaced human labor with technology. Now if Aliens who are obviously light years a head of us are able to get to our planet and be gone in such super speed then don't you suppose they would have even greater technology to fulfill their needs? I think so. Or maybe they want to kill us all because they want to occupy Earth because they destroyed their own planet. Unlikely, if that was the case they would have done so long ago. Besides we're destroying Earth as it is. By the time we're done with it I don't think we will have any extra-terrestrial takers. We should prepare for battle! That would be ridiculous. Would we win? No. I mean it takes up 18 months for a round trip to Mars. To Pluto we wouldn't make it in our lifetime at the speed with our own space craft. Obviously they are from somewhere outside our Galaxy so you could only imagine how long it would take us to find them. Then we would die and never return to their planet or our own to share the new knowledge because we ran out of fuel, food, and oxygen before we made it. If they had that many sightings in 2008 alone, imagine how many others were seen over the years world wide. Return visitors. Super speed.

Why do aliens come to Earth? Well why do swim in the sea to study Squid?

Do they come in Peace and want to be Friends? Do we greet ant hills and try to be their friends? No.

Personally, I think it's very strange that people accept God and they don't accept Aliens as existent. There is more evidence of Extra Terrestrial Intergalactic neighbors than God. I'm not saying there is not a God. Don't get it twisted. I am however saying Religion is Bull and it's a primitive, controversial, narrow minded individual mini government that starts conflict and separation among people. If life forms outside Earth is proved then it discredits religion and not just one religion either.

There are things we don't understand and I believe there is an afterlife and a spiritual world. I also believe no monk, no priest, no matter how many times you meditate a day or how many out of body experiences you have had that you are any more aware of the meaning of life than anyone else. You just think you do. Religion in a nutshell is proof of humans inability to cope with death.

"My preacher can heal people!" Human energy. "I cried because I felt the holy ghost at Church!" Well I cried when I saw enthusiasm at Hillary Clintons speech at the DNC. Human energy. So monks have healed. Joe blow down the street healed others. Amazing things happen everyday by hundreds of different people. That still doesn't make them creditable in things like the meaning of life. The Universe has millions of unlocked mysteries and no one is able to unlock them all.

I think there are some people who have the ability to see a bit further than the average Joe and my guess is that just a tad bit more of their brain is functioning. Not enough to make a note worthy difference but I think gradually our species is gaining more control over their brain. Right now we only utilize a small fraction of it. Evolution of man continues!!! Imagine if we could use the whole thing. WOW. We'd probably be able to do a lot more and would probably stop fighting over dumb crap like racism, territory, religion, politics, and other crap.

Actually this stuff has always interested me. In 2030 they want to start pioneering to Mars. Send about 30-40 people there to stay for the rest of their lives. Spooky. Kinda cool. Okay I'll end my rant now.

Karma

Today we went to the Buddhist temple where a wise man came from Jakarta, ID to speak to the temple members regarding Karma. I didn't understand any of the presentation due to it being in Indonesian and I don't know that language. Following the presentation my family and I met with the man in a room of the temple. Apparently he is know for being able to connect his auroa with others and take a peek into their lives as well as their previous life before they were reincarnated into their current life.

I suppose he connected with my auroa and was able to tell me a few things regarding my life and its connection to my previous life. My father had to translate for me most of what he had said. He stated that in my past I was unstable in career and in love and I easily got bored and changed my mind without thinking. I guess this has been a trend in my past, not recent past but still something I dealt with before. He said this was due to my previous life ending with a lot of instability and it carried on into my current life and remained until it finished its course. Luckily for me, this trend of instability ended a couple of years ago. He also said that I had been through many great ordeals and that I was extremely lucky. Many times in my life I was in strange and even dangerous situations where my good karma stepped in and saved my ass. The good karma was collected from my previous life and that is was has given me so much luck in this one. In my previous life I had done many good things and have no bad karma to date. It was only the instability in the previous life that I died with that made things unstable in my current life, it was not bad karma, so he says. He also said that I was impatient and stubborn but had a big heart and extremely good fortune. Well, I am still impatient and I am still a bit stubborn but overall I think I made a lot of progress onto finding out exactly who I am.

Now I pretty much been agnostic my entire life. I was exposed to Christianity in the United States but never got too involved in the religion. Now that I am here in Asia for a while I am being exposed to Eastern thinking and beliefs. Karma is a big way of life here and I always thought of Karma as being a large possibility. As far as Buddhism I am still a bit unsure. They say that it is the "logical" religion or philosophy but I beg to defer in some areas. For instance Karma carries on from one lifetime to the next. If your good karma is high you will be born into a good position in the following life. I suppose when you look at the world as a whole my position was pretty good. When you have a lot of bad Karma you may be born into a very difficult position. For instance, my cousin inquired about another cousin with this man tonight. A young distant female cousin of mine was born disabled both mentally and physically. The wise man stated he was able to see that in her previous life she was born a male who was very large, dominating, and physically abusive so her disability is an action of bad karma.

The reason I am a bit skeptical regarding Buddhism is that depending on the position in which you are born into may determine who you are and how you behave thus defeating the purpose of the whole rewards and punishments of Karma. Say you are born extremely wealthy, doesn't this sometimes bring out the worst in people? Greed, selfishness, lack of compassion to name a few. Another thing that bugs me a bit about Buddhism is that I am unable to see how the situations you go through in your current life are going to be related to your previous life by you. I mean are you suppose to accept the fact that you were born into a slum village or that your husband beats you day and night as a reaction to something you had done in a previous life? How is this going to teach you a lesson if you can't relate it?

I like to think of Karma as a more immediate reaction to an action. For instance, you get drunk and slap someone. The next day you're hung over in a jail cell with assault and battery charges. Or you do many good things, always treat people with respect, then it gets noticed by others and in return you are respected. Maybe you work very hard every day at your job and you earn a promotion or a bonus. I guess I don't ever think of it as deeply as the Buddhist monks or the Buddhist in general do.

The only thing I strongly believe is that if you are a good person consistently that you deserve good things. If you are a bad person and do bad things you deserve undesirable results from your actions. I also believe everyone is in charge of their own life. I screwed up pretty badly in my past and I could sit there and point my finger at someone else or I could admit that I had a part in it. I was fully capable of preventing things from going wrong and I didn't, so I don't blame anyone other than myself for the things I been through in life. I just accept them, as difficult as that was, and move on.

Another thing regarding Karma that I may have been wrong about. In the past I did many things that wasn't very nice at all. I suffered for it too. I sat on my ass the last couple years and felt horrible, not allowing myself much slack. Guilt and the inability to fix broken things is an absolutely horrid feeling. A good handful of people in the last couple years had advised me to forget it and forgive myself. Easier said than done of course. I felt I had to suffer through it because it was Karma and I was paying for the wrong I did by feeling very bad. I got to thinking about it a while back and I realized something very important. One of the key reasons why I didn't forgive myself was because I felt for so long I needed the forgiveness and approval of someone else in order to make things better on my end. A while after that I realized that the "someone else" wasn't the real victim of my actions, I was, and I had all the scars to prove it.

So what's the conclusion? Well I been told three times this year I don't carry any bad Karma. I have absolutely no clue how they know and I don't but whatever. I figure that the only way this could truly be is if I suffered from my own actions and no one else really did. Makes sense to me plus makes me feel a lot better. After all this, I feel pretty damn optimistic about my future right now.

Rainy October Days

Yesterday and today we have had unusually hard rain and very loud thunder. Sometimes it sounds as if the sky is falling. Yesterday we were on our way to the bank to make a deposit into my bank account when we noticed how flooded the streets were. Some of the roads were impossible to drive in without flooding your car. Luckily we didn't get into any accident. However, others were not so lucky. I saw a car turned completed over on the side of the road and about thirty men were there attempting to flip it over. I was a little concerned about them flipping it over with people inside of the vehicle. According to the Batam Pos this morning, which covered the tossed over vehicle, it was a rental car that had attempted to avoid a motorcyclists. The rain was so hard that the driver was unable to see the guy on the motorcycle clearly. He swerved once he got a glance of the guy on the bike and it ended up flipping over. It also said the reason they flipped it over so urgently without attempting to pull the passengers out was because there was signs of a possible explosion. It was a rental car and there were surprisingly no injuries or deaths. I wanted to post a picture but I forgot to take my camera in my purse yesterday.

Yesterday I attended to K1 Playgroup in one of my fathers learning center. After Ramadan the Learning Center suffered a rather large loss, 30 children did not return. My father held a meeting to find out why children do not return ie; financial problems, teacher quality, etc. I guess my father wants to improve the quality of instruction in the Learning center so I went to introduce the online program starfall to some of the instructors. I also met with instructors on English pronunciation. I normally wouldn't consider myself a qualified candidate, at least not in the United States, in Indonesia being a Native Speaker is being qualified enough. I also agreed to assist in English classes Monday thru Friday so I guess that will take up some more of my time.

I am still taking Mandarin classes in the afternoons. For a while I thought it was a loss cause because my instructor does not speak English which makes it incredibly hard for her to correct me and explain things. I am picking up a little just from being with her an hour a day but nevertheless its no easy task. Studying Mandarin outside of my assigned class hours just doesn't happen.

Today not much is going on really. My father, me, Ian, my sister Stefany and my cousin Sonny went to the Mega Mall today for lunch. Now were kinda just hanging out watching Sponge Bob Square Pants and I sometimes log on to yahoo for updates on the Presidential Election in the United States and the Global Financial Crisis. Other than that nothing else going on. Rainy October days :(

The Dark Spot of the House

Downstairs is a room that leads to a bedroom at the far end of the house. It's a pretty bedroom, not too much decor, has it's personal bathroom, large closet space, and kept very tidy. Now, the reason I mention this room is because on several occasions there have been reports of strange sightings and noises emerging from that area. My father asked the maid if she would like to use that room but the maid declined and stated she wanted to sleep on the floor in the living room. She also refuses to be inside the house alone, instead she will sit outside in front of the lawn and wait until someone returns to the house before she re-enters. When asked about this the maid never comments.




The driver, a strange man with a uni brow, is known to have a third eye. Having the third eye means you are able to see the dead. The man stated there are two ghosts that occupy that space. There is a tall youthful man whose eyes gleam red wearing all black and an older woman with long hair. My sister Stefany claimed she had seen the man before and provided a similar description. Several reports from different maids regarding the spirits that occupy that room also matched the description provided by the driver. Some have said that they have had goosebumps and chills upon entering this bedroom and appliances and lighting has shut itself on and off inside this room.





They say that if any space is unoccupied for long spirits may settle in that area. The reason why they do not stay long if a person occupies the space is because they find the body heat to be rather unsettling. I noticed that when we returned from our week long trip to China that my bedroom made much more noise at night than before. I also didn't fall asleep until about 4 am. I kept hearing slapping on the tile floor as if someone was hitting the floor with their hand. I would turn on the light but was unable to identify the source. I also heard what sounded to be a finger nail scrapping against the wall and me and my father heard a man singing that night. What bothered me the most is I heard a lot of activity outside my bedroom door; foot steps, shuffling, etc. Pretty creepy. Within a few days the strange noises ceased and everything was back to normal.



The long haired woman had been seen peering down from the internal window of the master bedroom on several occasions. What she was doing up there, I have no clue. She has also been seen walking around the house on the stroke of midnight and sometimes responding to prompts by the living; for instance responding to questions that are not directed towards her, etc. Whether or not this is true, I don't have any idea because unfortunately I do not have a third eye and have no abilities to see the dead.

Mid-Autumn Festival & Halloween

The closest Chinese Holiday to Halloween is the Mid-Autumn Festival which just ended with September. It is also known as the Moon Festival. The traditional food of this holiday is Moon Cake, which is delightful if I must say so myself. Once upon a time only the emperor could eat moon cake, it was not a delicacy for the common man. Upon the fall of the emperor the moon cake was dispersed across the nation so that all could enjoy it, or so one of the stories about the Mid Autumn Festival state. The festival commemorates an uprising in China against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty. There is a strong connection with the moon on this holiday and many different versions of the tale about a "woman in the moon". Due to the lightly lit up lanterns and how many chose this time to honor their dead ancestors, it is the closest holiday to the Western Halloween. Some of the Mid Autumn Customs are; eating moon cake outside underneath the moon, putting pomelo rinds on one's head, carrying lanterns, burning incense in reverence to deities, planting mid autumn trees, collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them to family members, and fire dragon dances. I only participated the burning of incense.

I never really thought about it before but Halloween is a marvelous part of my American Culture. Dressing up in costumes of the dead, witches, devils, etc. The trick or treating, syringed filled jello shots, haunted houses on front lawns, jack-o-lanterns, it's all so absolutely wonderful. Plus, its pretty neat to think the spiritual realm and the human realm become closer on the 31st of this month. I looked up some of the actual origins of this great holiday and turns out it's thought to be the Celtic New Year. In the past the dead is honoured and feasted as though they were alive. With the coming of the Christian religion the day was turned into Halloween. Since the Christians were unable to prevent individuals from celebrating this holiday they just sprinkled holy water everywhere and gave everything a new name. ::Laughing:: This only names a few facts; I wouldn't be able to name or talk about them all because the holiday is actually made up of hundreds of different cultures and customs combined. It definitely evolved over the years!
Ian dressed as the Green Ranger!

Me Being Creepy!

One of the biggest things I miss is the Halloween store. I don't actually know why I miss it so much since it was just a store with a bunch of grotesque costumes and make up but whatever! I thought it was cool. Last year I dressed Ian up as a power ranger and me and Tina dressed up as dead people. We found a decent lit up street and trick or treated for a few hours. Ian was terrified but I guess that was the point. Anyway, other than that I didn't do anything else. No Halloween parties last year, unfortunately. No Halloween parties this year either. I think my favorite Halloween was the year of 2006. I hated that year in general but it was a fun Halloween. I took Ian to his pre school where they had an open house. Differen't classrooms were made up with different themes. One classroom may blind fold you and have you stick your hands in a bowl or grapes or spagetti. Another one may be dark and called a Haunted House which they have you walk through as staff grab at your ankles. Plus I went to a couple Halloween House parties which were okay. Don't remember much of it but I'm sure it was colorful. I think it was just neat that I could dress however I wanted to, have my hair a different color each day and not have to worry what people thought. THATS THE FUN OF HALLOWEEN! I asked my father what would happen if I dressed up as a dead person here and he said people would probably get scared and run away or think irrationally and shoot me. Well, there goes that idea!

Since this year I am in Indonesia and there is no Halloween Holiday I decided to do my best in keeping the spirit of the season alive in my own life. Indonesia is rich in spooks! And that's NO JOKE! So my plan is to collect all the ghostly scary knowledge and places here and share them on this blog, plus I should have some fun doing it. I already have a list of interesting things I'd like to share on here after I dig around a little more. There is even one area of this house I stay in that has had sightings and other peculiar happenings which I will get into a bit more later. This year I won't be doing any of the norm so I have a few ideas to compromise. One idea is I could buy a bag of candy and just hide goodies around my bedroom. I also plan on downloading some recipes online, maybe have Ian do some spooky baking or something. Who knows? Maybe I could even do some arts & crafts and decorate my bedroom with spooky stuff, not that it necessarily needs it, it's a little creepy as it is.

Traditional Indonesian Fish Market

The day before yesterday I went to an Indonesian Traditional Fish Market in Batam Indonesia. It was my first visit to a Traditional Market in this country and it was quite an interesting experience for me. The photo above is of a traditional fish market in Jakarta Indonesia. I did not take any photos of the actual market I went to for several reasons. For one, I already got tons of looks for sticking out like a sore thumb and because I am a foreigner there really is no reason to bring anymore attention to myself. The actual fish market I went to was an inside market and it was quite huge! Many lights and decor lit up the space of the market.

I stood there in awe because I got to see so many different creatures that I had never seen before! They had a huge array of sea life both big and small, alive or dried! Some of the things I seen...I wouldn't eat. Anyway, they also had pork heads hanging on stands, chickens and their insides, and many other animals waiting to be butchered and cut for consumers. We bought shrimp, medium sized fishes, dried baby fish, along with some vegetables.

The fisherman usually fish and lay their catch in ice for the following day. The fish lay in metal pans like shown in the photo above. If the customer chooses they may have the head removed, intestines removed, de-scaled, etc. For the larger fishes (which some are about as big as a medium sized shark) the customer may chose to have the whole thing or purchase only sections. It was very enjoyable, colorful, and somewhat nauseating experience.

I found it odd that many of the shoppers walked around poking at the fish. I asked my father why they do that and he told me that if a fish is soft then it isn't any good anymore and fresh fish should have firmer meat. Well, at least now I know how to pick out a fresh fish from a rotten one. ::smiles::

A Visit to the Fortune Teller

About a week after entering Batam my father suggested I see the village fortune teller, just to pass time basically. She had a reputation for insane accuracy. I agreed to go and we went to her home one night so that she could give me a reading. We waited outside a room for about ten minutes before we were summoned to enter. Upon entering the room I took a few things into note. She did not look at me, she kept her eyes closed, which she did the entire reading. She also wore a long cloak and it covered her body and hair. She invited us to sit and she had me shuffle and cut a deck of cards. They were not tarot cards like I had expected but just a regular deck of playing cards. She then laid the cards out in some kind of pattern that was unfamiliar to me.

From what she told me, I would have a bright and prosperous future but that I needed to be patient. I have no bad karma like I believed I had for so long and that I had a spiritual guardian that followed me and protected me from harm. Of course, she told me much more but I don't necessarily feel comfortable writing everything in a public blog.

Anyway, regardless if this was for entertainment purposes or if she carries truth behind what she sees, it was an interesting experience for me. Indonesia is quite different to the United States in the respect of the Spiritual World. I have always been skeptical myself and still am but I find that it is an old and very strong part of the culture here. From Black Magic to White Magic, from Psychics to Mystics, ghosts and those with a third eye, its all here. The people here are highly superstitious. Maybe it has something to do with the fact its still a third world country or maybe its that advanced worlds have closed their eyes to forces they do not understand. I mean, electricity and the microwave has always existed but we didn't believe it until after we saw it.

I like to consider myself to be open minded. I don't accept anything for truth without proof but I won't deny a possibility. Same with religion! I currently consider myself Agnostic (not to be confused with Atheist) because there is so much conflict and controversy revolved around religion and the different religious beliefs. Not to mention, I always viewed religion to be a barrier that seperates people. No religion, no matter how strong their faith or how logical their theory may be, is able to prove a thing. Of course, I definitley wont deny the possibilities.

Sense of Home: Visalians and the PP Crew

Nothing too awesome or exciting happened much so I am going to dedicate this blog to the life I left behiind...and sometimes miss. I'm originally from Merced, Ca and thats currently where all my belongings are but a couple years ago I relocated to Visalia, Ca and found it to be one of the best decisions of my life. The people there are awesome, the lifestyle there is awesome, and its a great city in general.

This is a picture of me and Tina at the MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. She is a fellow Mercedian who I dragged with me to Visalia. She is also a Ho (again, that's good in some cultures) and one of my bestest friends in the whole world. I love this Ho Bag for life! She has to be the most hassel free gal I know.

Here is a photo of Tina, Ashley, Amber and I at my little "going away" get together. Ashley is about to give birth to a little girl expected November 12th but I try my best to encourage her to deliver on the 9th. Amber worked with me at PP and she is the "BOMB DIGGITY", nicest girl I ever met! If you ask me it's because Amber isn't native Californian, she is from Maine. Explains a lot.

Angelica, me and Tina all dressed up and no where to go like usual. Tres Brujas

The #1 Boss in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD! The Top DAWG of the PP Crew! Gloria RAWKS! This is a picture taken on my last day at PP as I was saying my final Good Bye to everyone! Gloria, Jose, Nikey, Chris, Amber, Lola, Enrique, and Irma! The best team I ever worked with, the best company I ever worked for, and I can say that without a doubt.
From beyond Irma's head you can see Jose pretending to be King Kong with the FTE airplanes! Apparently, this is what he does when he gets bored and met his call goals. When times were stressful and the Payroll and Billing was getting out of control I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for this guy being an idiot and cheering me up with dorkness.

THE BEAR! This is the PP Bear which I found choked, strangled, detained, and hanging by a tac in my office. Unfortunately, the culprit for this devious act remains unknown despite the fact suspects were questioned accordingly. The PP bear was released and suffers no permanent damage or injuries but refuses to speak due to the trauma. We are still investigating possible motives behind this threatening act of inhumanity.

Trip to China: The Ng Village

We returned about a week ago from a week long trip to Xiamen, China. About two hours (in which direction I have no idea) lies the Ng Village in Shi Shan. Where my ancestors are from. My family travels there about twice a year, this was my second visit. In Febuary we went there to clean the graves of our ancestors on the mountain. The second time we went to pay respect in the month of the Autumn Harvest. Basically, the only difference I really saw is this time we didn't do much cleaning and we got to eat mooncake.

I'm not going to try to explain in detail the culture or exactly what the meaning of what we do there because I am still learning it myself. I've included photos to kinda describe exactly what goes on. I took these photos during my first trip up there, bare with me because they are photos...of photos.



First we climb a mountain, up to where the graves are located. The second time I didn't have to climb, instead I got what they called "Chinese Rollercoaster" which was an automobile that has a huge platform in the back where people sit. Then you ride up on a very narrow and bumpy path that is only inches away from certain death, all the way to the top!




Then we clean the gravesites and pray. This time in China they sang some song that I did not understand and then paid respect in the order of the generation, therefore being that I am third generation I was last to pay my respects.


They then climb back down from the mountain and burn prayer notes, hell bank notes, and paper clothing so that the spirits may collect them. This is not Buddism but old Chinese tradition.


This is the Ng Village, where my Grandparents are from. Everyone here shares the surname, and they consider each relative, no matter how distant.

My dad standing in front of my Grandmother's first house. My cousins Elizabeth and Paulus are right there standing in the doorway.




The gate entrance to the family house in China, and yep there is me standing in front of the house. My Grandmother build this house years ago so that all her children and grandchildren have somewhere to go should something happen in Indonesia or wherever they may be.

A photo of myself and some of my family members. I blend don't I? I tend to do that sometimes. China is a beautiful place rich old culture and customs. I look forward to returning in following years so I could learn more about the culture.

Alive in Indonesia

I miss driving. I miss driving a whole lot. Often when I get stressed out in the Untied States I would get behind my wheel, drive out on some dark country road, turn up rock n' roll music and scream until my lungs ached. That just about always did the trick. I voiced this today to my father, which probably wasn't such a great idea. See, he let me drive.
I thought hey no problem, I been here for about a total of three months and I'm totally used to looking at traffic like this now. You know, mass amount of motorcycles, no use of turn signals, merging constantly between lanes without cause or reason. Not to mention I am so used to being in the driver seat without driving, how hard could it be to be the driving in the passenger seat? Totally got it! NOT!
Anyway, everything was running pretty smoothly...until I noticed there was a bus stalled in my lane and I had to merge into the right lane. I could see from my review mirror there was a herd of motorcyclist headed my way and it was going to be a tight squeeze that....I didn't make. I scraped against the bus. No one died. No injuries. Regardless, it sucked.

Oh and I should mention the fish today! The maids went downstairs and collected three fishes from the pond, brought them upstairs and began to cross the bridge. I wanted to make sure Ian had a chance to see them before they were taken across the bridge to the other side to be slaughtered for dinner. Anyways, once me, Ian, my dad and the maids stood on the bridge my father tried to grab one of the fishes from the bucket. Apparently, they didn't like that too much and began flopping around until one successfully flopped out of the bucket. On the second attempt to grasp the fish, it flopped right over the bridge, down to the first story and landed hard onto the pavement. I was shocked! What's even more shocking is that the fish lay there still, the maid put the fish in a bowl and it remained still. Across the bridge, down the stairs and into the back it remained still. Then they threw it into another pond, where it began swimming around like nothing happened. That was shocking!

Bak catching a fish in one of the ponds.

The Albino Fishy Fish!