mushy brain

a blackberry conversation between me and my baby brother.

me: nanti ko plg nda usah bawa air kontak lens

bro: ha

me: ada se pny sisa. se taro meja riasnya oc nanti. msh byk isinya

bro: sa nda pake kontak lens

duuuuuuuh!!!!!

my new mobile

i was bullied into changing my phone to a blackberry when i was home back in march. i gave in. yeah, i know. shocking.

i didn’t understand the whole hysteria behind this blackberry craze in indo and didn’t see why my mum and sister insisted that i needed a blackberry but now that i’ve had mine for a couple of months, i think i get it. they kept saying it makes keeping in contact much easier and it’s true.

i have ‘talked’ more this past month than i have the last 10 years with people i should’ve kept in touch with, my big family. most of them don’t use the computer on the daily basis. some of them don’t even have e-mail account so keeping in touch hasn’t exactly been easy. but now… we talk every other day or so. it’s pretty handy since we all carry our mobiles around with us most of the time. and, most of all, it’s fun. it makes me laugh all the time.

like today.

me: eh itu keluarga besar btlan mo ke cina. se jg mo ikut tp ke hk-nya ji nyahaha

sis: s bsk mo ke hk. murah pp 200ribu. hahaha. libur lagi skola. guru2 training.

me: cuih kl gitu minggu dpn se pi london, murah tonji. tp nda ada visa haaaahahahha

sis: hahahahhahaa

 i think MOH is a bit worried about the phone bill 😀

no self-control

maksud hati mau diet, tapiiiiii…..

… banyak godaan di freezer (in the form of tiga potong capit kepiting in this occasion).

gelar koran di lantai, makan pake tangan. serasa di rumah.

surnames

somewhere in norway there is at least one person whose last name is sandal.

if that’s not funny enough, there is at least one person in norway whose last name is buset.

nyahahahaha. hope that buset person has no plan to visit indo in this lifetime.

once an indonesian always an indonesian

i called the indonesian embassy in oslo to inquire about what to do regarding my soon-to-be-expired passport. the person answering the phones answered all my questions efficiently. must say, i was impressed. and none of that unwilling to help attitude, the way they do it in indo. you know, how they feel like you’re disturbing them from leisure time when it’s actually their job to assist you.

so i asked and asked and asked questions. each and every one was answered clearly. when i asked how long the whole process would take, the answer was it could be done in one day as long as i got all the right forms.

‘so does that mean that i can come in any day during working hour with all my forms and my new passport will be issued there and then while i wait?’

the answer made me giggle in my head. it ensured me i was indeed talking to an indonesian working for the government of indonesia.

‘well, if the person whose in charge of that is in the office, then yes. if not, you might have to come back the day after.’

all the way to norway and they still can’t be sure such and such person will be in the office at office hours. you can take the pegawai negeri out of indonesia but you can’t take indonesia out of the pegawai negeri 😀

dialects

—a rare post in which i praise norwegians—

i have not lived in my hometown since mid 1996. ever since i moved, i have had very little contact with people from there. a handfull in surabaya, one during my whole time in australia and none so far here in norway.

i still speak with my local dialects when i talk to those from my hometown.  i had openly laughed (to their faces) at friends from makassar who spoke with javanese dialect to me and told off those who used ‘loe gue aku kamu’ while chatting with me.

i understand the need to use more neutral language when communicating with people from outside makassar because it might be a bit difficult for them to understand us otherwise, but for people from makassar to start saying things like, ‘hari ini mo ngapain’ instead of  ‘apa ko mau bikin ini hari’ or ‘aku kangen banget sama makassar’ instead of ‘rinduku makassar’ to each other is just bullcrap.

every time i read friends from my hometown write messages amongst each other on facebook sounding like they were born and bred in java, i have a good laugh. on good days. on bad days, i call them names. i mean, please, get real. i have heard the ‘oh, but we’ve lived in (insert-a-town-in-java) for so long, we’re so used to it’ excuse again and again but as i have said before, bullcrap. i lived in australia for seven years and have now been in norway for four, you don’t see me talking english or norwegian to you. yes, this blog is in english but you’d never catch me do it in a face-to-face contact. i could easily pretend i have forgotten how to speak with local dialects or even indonesian and start walking around like a pompous bitch saying ‘oh, i don’t remember how to say this in indonesian’, throwing a ‘how’s it going’ here and there instead of ‘apa kabarmu cs’ but even the thought of it makes me go eeeeewwwwww inside. it’s not possible to forget your root. heck, just two days ago i said ‘apa’ when i wanted to say ‘what’ to MOH on the phone.

why are we so obsessed about sounding like people from java? there’s nothing wrong with talking with javanese dialects (the many variety of it). when you’re originally from there, that is. why pretend when that’s not the case? is it embarassing to have come from a relatively small town?

i have said a lot of bad things about norway and norwegians but if there is one thing i truly admire about them: they’re proud of where they come from.

my mil is from bergen. she’s lived in ålesund for many, many years but she still say ‘ikke‘ instead of ‘ikkje‘ and ‘dere‘ instead of ‘dokke‘ (ikkje and dokke are local dialects). when we were down in bergen, the ålesund contingent didn’t suddenly speak with østland dialects. no, we talked like proud ålesunder, thank you very much. small town and all. we still replaced our h’s with k’s (for example ka, kor instead of hva and hvor). nobody felt like they had to speak with oslo or bergen dialect to make them sound smarter.

on the local news, the newsreaders do their job in their local dialects. pick up the local newspapers and they’re written in local dialects.

there is no shame in coming from a small town. at all. why would you deny who you are?

to be completely honest, the first time i moved to surabaya, i too started communicating with my friends in javanese dialects. but only in letters. they did the same thing. when we talked, we reverted back to our local dialect. and then there was this one day when i talked to my best mate on the phone, said ‘makassar’ in a javanese way and he said, ‘e de de, makaSSSSar kodong, buka makasar.’ it was like a smack on the head. a kick on the gut. for that,  i’ll be forever thankful to him.

phew… just needed to get that out of my chest.

and to end it on a fun note… a funny song talking about the same thing i wrote above, sang in my beloved hometown’s dialect.

(don’t mind the clip. these dh kids… they sure know how to have fun)

i would like some…

i saw world café on tv last night. the host went to bali.

sate lilit, babi guling, nasi campur, tahu goreng, bebek betutu. all of that and you know what i saw that made me went ‘iwantiwantiwant!’?

salak.

one off the list

i bought MOH’s christmas present yesterday. woo hoo!!!! after days of thinking about what to get him, i finally found him something that i think he’ll like.

i went to the shop and went back and forward between two things because i couldn’t make up my mind so i call his mum and had a long chat before i finally decided on what to buy. what would’ve we done without mums, huh…

so i bought him… and this is going to be in indonesian because i know he reads this (i know you read this, husband)…

huruf ketiga dari kata lewat. huruf pertama dan keempat dari kata india. huruf keempat dari kata manfaat. huruf keempat dan kelima dari kata wanita.

daaan, because we didn’t have mesinnya, harus beli juga. hadiah termahal i have ever given anyone my whole life. global financial crisis and all hehehe tapi natal kan cuma sekali setahun…

and then when i got home, hadiahnya kan dua, kotaknya terpisah. bungkusnya jg dua, tapi cuma satu yang ditaruh di hallway, satunya lagi tersembunyi di dalam tas di lemari baju.

and my present from him is also standing in the hallway right now. it’s pretty big but light. i’m kinda curious. why is it still so long to christmas? 🙂

bubur kacang ijo

i have such craving for bubur kacang ijo.

i’m pretty sure i can get kacang ijo from the asian shop but where do i get gula merah from?  can i use brown sugar? or maybe they have palm sugar in plastic packaging here. hmmm…

this is so weird. i don’t even like food with santan.

confusing

• her – di sini
  hit – ke sini
• der – di sana
  dit – ke sana
• ut – keluar
  ute – di luar
• hjem – ke rumah
  hjemme – di rumah

binguuuuuuung!!!!!!!! 

dengar dan mengerti berita di tv dan radio, bisa.
nonton dan mengerti acara tv berbahasa norwegia, bisa.
baca buku berbahasa norwegia dan mengerti isinya, bisa.
baca dan mengerti koran norwegia, bisa.
use one of the words listed above (dan kawan2nya yang serupa), ti-dak bi-sa.
i always mix them up. sedihnya….