Thanks to Ecky and Yoyen who have tagged me in their I Am Awesome posts, because my blog seriously needs updating. Due to the hectic work life, I haven’t been able to update anything but that’s about to change now! So here it goes…

I am awesome because….

I am an independent woman who knows what she wants. I have a job that I love. I have a man that worships the grounds I walk on. I have a dog that loves me unconditionally. I have parents that albeit not perfect, love me with their own ways. I have a blessedly abundant life that makes me feel thankful everyday.

I have learnt that success comes when you work hard and put your faith in it. And that success is not about money, but it’s about achievements and pursuing the things that are worth getting. Success is about getting the lifetime experiences that makes me the person I am today.

I have finally found the job that I love and am passionate about. How many people can say the same? It’s a truly awesome feeling to know that I’m doing the things I love and getting paid for it at the same time!

I am loved by the most wonderful man in my life. He is my best friend, my partner in crime and my mentor in many things. He makes me feel so special and truly blessed, and he makes sure I know it too – everyday. Plus, he’s the only man who can stand being sexually harassed either by my dirty jokes or irresponsible groping.

I have the most beautiful son, Micah. He’s my precious gem and he never fails to let me know how much he loves me. He welcomes me with such pure happiness everyday, and he weeps his heart out whenever I leave him in the mornings. It is through him that I learn how to love unconditionally.

I have grown from a shy, ugly duckling to a confident sexy mama (ask Rima Fauzi if you don’t believe me), which is a transformation that takes lots of years of learning and practice.

I am myself, and not someone else. I make the people around me feel special (this one is from himself). Truly, I am an awesome lady.

And to spread the awesomeness around, I’d like the following awesome people to write seven awesome things about themselves:

1. Ivy, the stylish sexy mama

2. Toni, the awesome photographer

3. Elyani, my big sister who I miss very much

4. Parvita, the independent lady

5. Eru, the happy-go-lucky programmer in Bali

6. ChenChen, the girl who always makes me laugh

7. Mia, the absolute dog lover and owner of Becky’s Bits.

Let’s all embrace our awesomeness!

The fourth Land Coffee aka Kopi Darat was held yesterday at Grand Indonesia’s Social House, which was located in Harvey Nichols’ grocery shop in the West Mall. The ones who made it were Boy, Devi, Parvita and Toni.

Now, first things first – Grand Indonesia kind of irks me. The size of the place, for a start, is simply too big. It’s humoungous. No one needs a mall that big. But I could be wrong – apparently Indonesians do. But seeing as there was a full on hype about Social House, (to be exact I can’t remember who suggested this venue in the first place but never you mind), we decided to give it a go.

I arrived with himself around 1 pm and we had our lunch at Kafe Betawi. I ordered Laksa Betawi and himself ordered Soto Betawi with rice. For drinks, we ordered Avocado juice (mine) and his was Lemon juice. When the food arrived, I had to say that I was a bit unsatisfied – the Laksa was a bit too sweet to my liking. Himself also said the same thing about his Soto Betawi, I ended up asking for some salt from the waiter.

Another thing that I noticed was that the waitresses were kind of pouty and unsmiling. I guess I never noticed this before, but working in a place where the students were trained to work in a five-star hotel environment, I began to be more aware of how important customer service skills were.

At work, the students were expected to smile – all the time. It was one of the most important parts of their job. They were not only required to smile, but also to change their whole attitude in general, including their body postures (slouching and leaning against walls are big no-no’s), their conversational skills (being able to say “How are you today” and hold a general chit-chat with the guests were to be expected from them). For the students who were training to become Assistant Steward Lido, they were expected to greet everyone by their names, to smile and to work efficiently. That meant no idle chit-chat with their friends while on duty, and they had to know when was the time to clear the guests’ tables so that the guests could proceed to have the next meal course. They were also expected to find out whether everything was satisfactory and up to the guests’ expectations.

With all those things in mind, I began to understand how customer service skills could easily make a difference in places like restaurants and hotels where manners and good services were not only expected but also maintained and improved.

At Social House, unfortunately for them, I didn’t witness any of those things mentioned above. Even Devi, who was the first person to arrive, got a rude welcome by the maitre’d who told her that to be able to get in she’d have to have a friend who was already sitting inside. Did that mean a single person was not allowed to eat at Social House? A tad bit discriminative, don’t you think?

I don’t care if it was in Harvey Nichols or Harrods or whatever, I thought the rule of customer service was that you had to be nice to everyone, regardless of what they looked like. Just because Devi wasn’t wearing a Rp. 16 million rupiah worth of dress, it didn’t mean she couldn’t afford eating at Social House.

Another thing that I noticed was that there seemed to be an ample amount of waiters available but all of them seemed to be very clueless on waiting tables. Sometimes they’d huddle around and gossiped with each other in one corner, and the manager would just walk around and did nothing. When Boy ordered bottled water, the waiter tried to pour it into the glass but the lid closed back up, and he just kept on pouring, rendering the whole thing to be completely useless. Poor Boy had to tell him to just never mind and he ended up pouring the water by himself. Atrocious.

Devi and Parvita ordered one of those hip-and-happening juices with names like Stress Buster and whatelses, and Devi thought it was funny that her glass was smaller than the one that Parvita’s came with. I ordered Forget Me Not (a mocktail) and the glass size was the same as Parvita’s. She complained to the waiter but the waiter didn’t give any solutions to make her feel better. What was even more comical was when we ordered bottled water, the bottle was unbelievably tiny but the glasses were big. How ironic!

For food, himself and I ordered the spaghetti with spicy garlic oil, prawns and fresh parsley. It came out green, which was unexpected. I could tell that himself was a bit turned off by the overall tone of it as the menu itself didn’t have any pictures of what the dishes looked like, but he ended up tasting it a bit and I finished the whole thing off, half-heartedly, off course. The taste was nothing spectacular, sorry to say. I really thought they could’ve had done a better job with the taste. Perhaps they meant the pasta to be al dente but it still left a floury, chewy texture on my tongue.

Himself’s opinion on the Iced Cappuccino was not exactly mind-shattering either. He said the Iced Cappuccino in Dunkin Donuts was much better. Ouch!

Another thing that I noticed about the service of the waiters was that we were sitting there, still talking and we already finished our meal but we were still waiting for Toni who got held off at Senayan. It was clear that we were in no hurry whatsoever, but no waiter came up and cleared our tables. Even when we already ordered something else, the waiter just left without offering or having the initiative to do so, until I had to tell one of them to do it! Social House, where the hell did you hire these people from? Did they know any single thing about working in a hospitality business at all?

But enough about the downsides. Apart from the lack of customer service skills, the atmosphere of the place was great. I loved the architecture and it was cozy enough to stay for hours and have a chat with your friends (until the waiters started giving you hints to piss off, that is). It was an ideal place to take some photos as well (as evident by Toni and Parvita’s results of magic hands), as the overall lightings gave out a friendly and warm feeling to the whole outlook of the place.

As for the verdict – would I be going back there? I don’t know, we’ll have to see. If they continued with that kind of services, I’d definitely not. The food was standard by any means, the service barely gave out any plus points. Not to forget that it was a part of Harvey Nichols, one would think they’d offer something much more spectacular and of high standard.

Perhaps next time I should stick to Cazbar.

The infamous Mrs. Anita McKay was back in J-town, so what better way to welcome her than to arrange a Land Coffee together at our favorite spot, Cazbar?

As well as Anita and I, there were Devi Girsang, Ecky, Tere616 and Parvita. All of them, as some of you might already know, are well-known bloggers who brighten up the Indonesian blogosphere. I myself have frequented their blogs every now and then but this would be my very first time of meeting the others, apart from Ecky, which I’ve met twice with Anita last year, and have since kept contact with her through instant messaging and Facebook.

The first to arrive, so anally early, was me, which was a record considering I was the one who lived in the outskirts of Jakarta (apart from Tere616 who actually lived very, very close to me we could’ve been neighbours!). Then Anita came, bringing her white macbook (as always) and a couple of things, such as the infamous Tunnock Tea Cakes, and six (yes, six) novels to devour, all for me, me me. I squealed with delight at the thought of having something(s) new (and in English!) to read and immerse myself in – in this weather, nothing’s better than curling up in bed with a good read and a nice cuppa.

We caught up with the latest news, and then Anita waved at someone who was coming over and as I turned around I gaped – who was this tall, fabulous woman? Those legs, those arms! Well, it was none other than Parvita. The moment we started chatting, I immediately liked her – she was sweet and calm, which made me admire her even more because after reading her blog, who wouldn’t? A combination of brain and beauty, which makes the perfect woman. And just like me, she loves dogs too!

Then came Ecky, wearing this nice rose-colored top paired with these shorts, that made her waist looked even tinier than mine could ever be, and she was still looking as gorgeously tanned as usual. By the time she came, Anita, Parvita and I had already ordered (Spicy Tuna pasta for Parvita, Goulash soup for Anita and Grilled Chicken Steak for me).

As we continued talking about everything that had been happening in Jakarta and beyond, Devi showed up with her brother, and the funny thing was that she was already standing inside, near the entrance, and we saw her but couldn’t be sure whether it was her that she had to call me on my mobile before she realized she was only twenty feet away from us! It was mostly my mistake because I heard messages coming in through to my mobile but I was too busy er.. talking, I forgot to read them, and they were all from Devi. Sorry Devi!

Devi was a tall girl with long swishy hair and a bubbly personality, and she was nice and chatty just like the rest of us.  She didn’t join to have lunch with us because she was having a toothache but just like what we did before her, she couldn’t resist having a go at one of those Tunnocks Tea Cakes! Salute, Devi! However, those cakes were simply too delicious to be missed, and thanks to Anita, we will probably crave for more of them – nice, gooey white marshmallow with soft biscuity base inside, all covered with milky melt-in-your-mouth chocolate – how can you resist?

The last to come was Tere616, and she was wearing this black dress that I adored. She was talkative, funny and very pretty, and despite having two kids, she didn’t speak like any ol’ mothers who fuss about their children – quite the contrary, she was cool and hip and happening, probably more than I could ever be!

Because Tere616 also owned a dog, and so did Parvita, there was a point where we got busy talking about our dogs and share our (mutual) feelings and experiences of owning canine companions.

Both Anita and Parvita brought their SLR cameras, even Devi brought a digicam, and I was regretting the fact that I forgot to bring mine, but we had a couple of nice pictures taken. You can see the rest of them on our Facebook profiles – sorry, members only, folks!

All in all, we had a great time. Would we do it again? Absolutely. Better stay tuned for the next Land Coffee, hopefully more people will turn up (as in, expecting Toni Wahid and Elyani to share and practice their awesome photography skills to us).

See you next time!

If you know what my desk previously looked like, you’d notice that there was no scanner before. Around sometime mid 2008 we bought a Canon scanner and an Epson printer – made it easy for design work when people asked for hard copy. The printer is placed on another table on the left.

So basically I have my Fujitsu A3110 Lifebook, a Wacom Intuos3 graphic tablet, and Sonic Gear speakers with the subwoofer placed underneath the desk (where Micah loves to sleep next to, I’m afraid). On the right side of the desk is the old mouse and the pig-shaped wrist pad  so that I don’t get bruised wrist while working, and then there’s my Sony Ericsson W300i mobile.

I think the clear, somewhat yellowish liquid in the mug is actually some herbal drink I take due to the current swollen gum that I’m suffering from – wisdom teeth is growing and it’s giving me a pain in the arse. Which explains the blister of tablets lying there – those are Cataplam – it contains diclofenac potassium and although I’ve worked for 1.6 years in a pharmaceutical company I have no idea at all what it means, except that it reduces the pain and it makes me feel sleepy – schweet! The rest of the stuff on the right side are pens and brushes and oh, this old make-up brush that I end up using to clean my keyboard instead.

On the left side of the table is my Canon scanner, some CMS manual book, my headphones and a bottle of vitamin C tablets.

So that’s all folks! Nothing special really – but I love my desk mostly because it’s L-shaped and curved inside – I hate sharp edges inward or outward!

I’m tagging Anita, Ecky, Chenchen, Toni, Tere616, and Woelank.  Show us your workstation, peeps!