Category: Excuse my zombie ness

A little update

Because I write this post in a sunny Sunday morning

So Hi guys. It’s been a while.

Life has been treating me with some punches but also some laughter along the way. But you know, that’s residency for you 😅

I have so many things to update this blog about but with a national exam coming up I’ll try to update a little.

Got my 3rd vaccine jab a few days ago (Healthcareworkers in Indonesia got 2 doses of Sinovac vaccine at the beginning of the year and got a privilege to get a 3rd jab with Moderna). I hadn’t really researched what the side effects were other than stories from my friends who got the jab earlier than me.

People said the effects were massive and they were feeling awful, local pain, fever, even some nauseousness and restlessness.

While a few little said nothing really happened. Only local pain for a while.

Thankfully I got the vaccine at Thursday so I only have one day to be at the hospital with the vaccine side effects and then get to rest for the weekend.

Apparently I belong to the latter group 😅

The first day I couldn’t move left arm.

The second day I could move it more, I felt little bit unwell (a bit of a fever) in the afternoon, took a nap for two hours and woke up feeling fresh again.

By the third day I feel totally fine, I couldn’t lift my arm all the way up but I think it’s fine.

New (Old) Hobbies

As you read from my previous post, I started to draw again. But also, I started writing more (fiction, journals).

It’s all because I opened up an email mailbox that haven’t been active for a while. That email was linked to my old blog that I stopped writing in 2017 (story for another day), but actually you can read them here

To be honest, reading my old blog is like reading from someone else’s view, even though it’s 19 year old me. And I asked myself did I change for the better or not. But I certainly wished that there are more things I was more passionate about. I mean I still like the things I liked then, but not as passionate.

And that includes writing. I wish I kept track of what my days looked like. I wish I could look back with proof like diary entries.

So that’s what I do. The last time I write consistently is when I was in 6th grade.

Being someone who is very hard to express her feelings (and not allowed to in most situations), I usually write stories and pour a bit of what I am feeling there. I don’t know, something about writing about it in third person view gave me new insights of the problem.

But what happens if I am in a writers block? I don’t write that much in the last few years and I repressed my feelings more and more. Making me into someone who is more pessimistic, and letting myself be consumed by residency and life.

Journaling felt like an outlet where I could write anything that I feel about. Be it good or bad, be it silly or it means something. No one would judge (although pretty sure if people read it, some people would get pretty upset) and the best thing is that I can write or draw anything there 😂

New Interest

I’ve always been someone who likes stationaries. I love cream colered lined notebooks, and I like thin line gel pens, also color markers and color pencils.

But ecommerce and youtube somehow brought me into the fountain pen world and… yep, now I write with fountain pens 😂 and let me tell you it’s a rabbit hole guys. I’ll make a dedicated post and write reviews about it.

So… I guess that’s my update. I don’t know why but I really feel like I am finding myself again through this hobbies.

Drawing makes me realize how my life path is very different than who my teacher in highschool thought I would be. It made me realize that I don’t have to fit into a box of other people expectations.

While writing is the essence of who I am as an individual. Something that I always associate as an innate thing.

I guess it’s a good update right? I hope that in every struggle you are going through, you don’t lose yourself. I hope that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

God bless you. Stay healthy!

The story of my eccentric art teacher

So as you guys may realize, I add my own illustrations to the blogpost now and so far I’ve been loving how it adds some kind of personal touch to the otherwise too-many-words-post.

When I picked up my pencil and started drawing again, I suddenly remembered about an eccentric art teacher that I had when I was in 7th grade.

I think most art teachers are generally nice, most of them really values the students hard work and gave their best input for the students to move forward. At least that’s what I experienced for most of my school years.

Except in 7th grade. There was this new teacher, let’s call him Mr.A, he was a 30 year old-something male with an art degree from the states. He spoke mostly English (his nationality is Indonesian), had this salt and pepper hair, quite tall. When you see him, you’ll definitely get that he’s an artist type despite dressing very formally when he teach.

At first we didn’t know what was coming since he seemed pretty normal. And because we only had art class once a week, we didn’t really get to know him.

I had arts as my extracurricular and I mostly remember being taught by other art teacher and he’s the best. So I remember him most of my Junior High School years rather than Mr.A.

So Mr.A was very talented (of course) and because he was quite quirky, art classes were not conventional drawing but rather he taught us history lessons and different styles of drawing.

One of those I remember was when he put an object in the middle of the class and we were instructed not to look at our papers and never to lift our pencils off.

This is what probably I looked like. I look like that most of the time anyway, when having a writers block

I had this crazy talented friend, lets call her N. N was and still is very good at drawing, and she prides herself for it. (Probably I would too if I had her talent)

I submitted mine and the next week he gave our works back.

I was sitting next to N and I remember N cried so loud and when I asked her why she gave me her paper with tears falling down her cheeks.

It looked amazing like usual, but a big 50 with a bright red marker was on the paper.

She didn’t accept the mark and she went to Mr.A and she asked him why did he give him a 50 (passing grade was 60 at the time) and he replied that her drawings hadn’t mature yet and he didn’t think it’s a good drawing. He wanted to give it a lower score but she should be grateful he gave her a 50.

N looked so shocked as she sat down and she kept quiet the whole time, as tears fell down her cheeks.

And if you asked me, how did I do?

I got 30 if I am not mistaken 😂

Thankfully, we only got him as our art teacher for a year before getting my extracurricular art teacher as our main art teacher.

And also, thankfully, N still draws until this day and her talent grew even more.

That’s the thing about harsh critiques, it either made you a better person or made you give up. I was lucky I never pride myself in arts so I stayed true to my style and met supporting teachers my whole life.

When I decided to write however the way I want here, I also took that liberation to the way I design my blog too. The zombie design was original and not gonna lie, I’d met some harsh criticism too. But at the end of the day, we do what we want to do and we do our best.

See you guys soon!

What came in the mail this week (First week of August 2021)

Remember when I said I want to post more mundane stuff? Yep this is the post that I want to share.

I mostly buy things online and they came in the mail. Most stuff I got are things I use routinely or random stuff I want to try.

So these are the things I ordered last week and came in the mail!

Canmake Mermaid Skin Gel UV SPF 50+ PA+++

A very adorable Japanese brand sunscreen. Easily available in Indonesian e-commerce store.

So sunscreen has been something I’ve been struggling to find. Having a sensitive and allergic prone skin made it hard to find a suitable sunscreen.

I’ve been routinely using sunscreen since I was 18 I guess? Quite late but better late than never? For a while struggling with allergic reactions and acne whilst trying to find the perfect sunscreen

Then I found Shiseido’s Perfect UV Protector SPF 50+ PA++++ (old pearly white packaging) and used it for 3 years. And loving that sunscreen because it’s safe for my skin and I love how it feels on my skin. And then they changed the formulation and ever since then, the new formulation always gave me somekind of reaction.

If I were to describe a devastating loss in my life. Probably one of them is when Shiseido decided to change their formulation of this sunscreen 🥲

There was a time for sunscreen hopping for me. I used Anessa too for a while (again, before they changed the formula), then relying on my primer and tinted moisturizer since I wear makeup daily. Then started using Kose’s sekkisei’s sunscreen and finally the Biore UV Oil control base (Meant to be a primer but I use it even without makeup).

After the pandemic, I decided there is no point of using makeup as I used to 😅. Whilst I love the Biore UV oil control base, it’s very hard to find here and I run out pretty quickly too.

With the power of the internet in 2021, I researched the sunscreen without list of things I am allergic to. And people recommended this sunscreen.

Yep. I think I found my favorite sunscreen now. I love (I’ll emphasize it again. LOVE) the texture (so light, moisturizing without being oily or silicone-y feeling afterwards). No stinging sensation (free of alcohol). No fragrance. And no reaction from my skin.

I usually use a dusting of loose powder because it’s very shimmery and dewy, not a good look for someone with oily skin like me. And probably if I were to change something is that I wished this would be waterproof and sweatproof (some sources said it is, but I can’t read Japanese on the packaging 😅)

I couldn’t comment whether it leaves a whitecast since I am quite pale. But I assume it doesn’t.

Highly, highly recommend this sunscreen. Hope I could repurchase easily when this runs out.

N’Pure Cica Beat the Sun SPF 50 PA++++

A local brand sunscreen which has stellar reviews. I am excited to try this one for the ingredients and it’s very suitable for sensitive and acne prone skin.

I hope I don’t develop a reaction to the Cica extract 🤞 Because sometimes I do to Laneige’s Cica Sleeping Mask if I leave it on too long 😅. Fingers crossed!

A Card Holder from Tory Burch

Because I use very small wallets 😅 I wish I could downsize more though. But this is nice, there is enough compartment for bills (I always fold my bills even when using normal sized wallet) and extra cards.

Madremia Hibiscus Shampoo Bar and Deep Conditioner

Since the beginning of this year I decided not to blow my hair straight with hairdryer and just let it airdry and curl naturally (okay, probably I am just lazy).

I have naturally wavy hair. But I don’t have a lot of hair 😅 but each of the hair strand is pretty thick and heavy so I have this heavy and non voluminous hair.

I found this local brand accidentaly and saw their products, their hibiscus line is made for wavy hair. I used them for a while now and found I got more volumous hair after washing my hair with their shampoo bar.

Shampoo bars are SLS free and good for the environment. Love that I could easily transitioned from normal shampoo to this shampoo bar because it doesn’t make my hair dry, I love the cooling sensation afterward.

Okay that’s all for today! See you soon guys!

Grateful for goodbyes.

Goodbyes are painful, yes. Especially ones that we don’t expect. For the things we thought are everlasting.

For me I have experienced one of my most painful goodbyes a few years back. The one that left the most scars.

It took a long time to let go, and it took a long time to let myself heal, and to allow myself heal. To open my eyes and see that there was more than just pain in that goodbye.

And for that goodbye, when I thought it was over. But there was another silent goodbye that followed, a goodbye for everything that has happened, every feeling and every pain. The mark that means making peace with the past and the mistakes on my end.

I am grateful for everything that has happened and the painful goodbyes that I have endured.

My heart is stronger than what I thought it could handle. And I am capable of much more than I thought.

I am growing and learning from my mistakes and in the process, healing.

Even though it would probably hard, a long and rocky road. and probably the ones that will hinder your progress will not be the bad memories, but the good ones, the ones that you dream and you smile and you cry afterwards because it’s in the past.

But it will come. No matter how long it takes, the day will come. Let yourself heal, be kind to yourself.

And I will open my arms for better hellos in the future

And I wonder…

If we live in an age such as now.

When will we be happy? Can we be happy?

The constant bombarding of oh-look-at-me-I-have-the-ideal-life by strangers.

The pressure of specific milestones and things you have to have before a specific age. Sometimes getting more and more ridiculous but some people around you will adhere to those expectations.

The bragging of success and dare to be different in the name of innovation and creativity. And people wanting normal life shunned because they are not dreaming enough.

With all these pressure, can we learn to cover our eyes and ears? Because if we don’t, happiness seem so far away, we keep comparing ourselves to the idea of perfection that we lose the person we truly are.

I hope there is someone in your life who made you realize that you are enough.

I hope you realize it by yourself too.

I hope you have the strength to break free from these expectations other people put onto yourself.

I hope you know that everything happens for a reason and the need to be patient. To wait. To understand.

One day you will.

And finally be happy.

Love, your nextdoor zombie.

2021

Let’s go, a 2020 appreciation/reflection post! I typed this as I just woken up from a nap (who takes a nap at 8 PM and woke up at 11 PM? Just me? Alright) and I realized that I haven’t make any 2020 reflection post.

What can I say? 2020 has been a pretty… weird year so far. The pandemic sucks, really. Thankfully as I know that I am in the freshmen year of residency, I don’t really have much of an agenda regarding things outside of residency because I know how much my life will revolve around residency.

Surprisingly there are loads of things that are good about 2020.

I am in good health.

These past few years I rarely see any problems regarding my health, but this year my health has been the best in a few years.

I didn’t get any high fever sore throat that I usually got every year.

All of my routine lab results are great.

I didn’t get any major injuries which is a great bonus.

Achieved my financial goals

This comes as a surprise for me since I stopped working in the end of 2019 to focus on my residency, which means I am no longer financially independent and I don’t have a steady income.

But God has been good, and the health minister (previous one that is) has been good to us, we got the thing that we never thought would happen in our lifetime. We got appreciation for residency (before this, residents in Indonesia work for free and we have to pay for education) due to the pandemic and most of us are up against the virus first hand (even me who is in a very different field), I am grateful that even though we are not a specialist yet, we got appreciated and acknowledged that we are still a physician.

(Okay the fireworks have just gone off)

Doing new hobbies and interests

Self explanatory. I have interests outside of the healthcare field and I am happy that I still managed to squeeze in some time for myself and my mental being. A few of my new interests made me realize that are loads of things to look forward in the future.

Great support from all the people around me

I have said loads of time that I love my friends and family members. But I think this year made me realize that I have more love than I ever imagined.

All of the 2020 resolution

Work harder, have more fun in everything I do, be grateful

I guess I achieved them all. Although I need more motivation to do things but overall it’s been great.

2021 Resolution

What is a new year post without any resolution?

  1. Be happier.
  2. Enjoy the small things in life.
  3. Do the little things that matters for my future (eat well, exercise, me time, etc)

Happy new year everybody! See you soon