officially 35 years, yesterday. heh, and here i am. well, i'm not a type of celebrating b'day somehow. i don't mind partying or whatever celebration for anybody else but not for me. i dunno. i feel awkward to do that for me. let me find out what in my state of mind avoiding such thing. i guess, when i was kid, we didn't use to celebrate it but perhaps doing small things such as receiving a small gift from parents or having a special food on that day. i think. i'm not sure. recalling my memory on it, it's hardly to find out any occasion where people celebrate my and others' b'days. i guess... i might miss any memory of mine about it but so far i can't remember any occasion associated with that thing. when i grew up, i remembered an occasion when my high school classmates celebrated my b'day which was wrong on date. i think i gave them wrong date, intentionally, of my b'day and thought they would forget it in one or two days until it surprised me when they celebrated it on the date, wrong date unfortunately. oh no.... not sure what they wrote in the b'day card somehow. 

the other occasion was lately, like 3 or 4 years ago in office when my colleagues and some internship students in my org gave me a surprise celebrating my b'day. In this case, it is on the right date. It's easy to track your birth of date when you're in office, somehow. and other ones, when i was with my gf, i guess, but because we were in distance, so just saying happy b'day and all and that's it.. and it turns out that only my youngest bro and my last (?) gf still remember and wished me b'day yesterday. 

but anyway, i celebrate my b'day somehow. i do. i used to go out somewhere, bukit lawang i remember most, to have reflection. or staying out night and figuring out what's has been happening to me during the year. or wandering in town observing things. yesterday, i tried to walk around and taking some pics and attempted to sit on a bench, somewhere near the university. but couldn't take long as it was getting cold. 

but i like such thing avoiding people out loud singing happy b'day and so on.. anti-social behavior? lol i guess not. for me, for me, it's just a personal thing. it's same like what you believe, how much you earn or any private things and you don't have to necessarily say it out loud. i don't know how i come across such thinking but i'm very happy to do that. can't be more happy :)

anyway, looking back, sort of reflection if you'd like, i guess my life is quite okay. what i mean is i do not regret for anything i should have done or got, i guess. i'm not saying either that my life is perfect but at least i'd say i'm satisfied what i'm now, whatever it is. this year, somehow, i'm on my year studying, something that i longed for so long since my undergrad graduation day. i couldn't figure out how i'd be able to have another education, postgrad, at that time. oh, i once thought working abroad and then do the postgrad. unfortunately, that didn't lead me on that way. but it turned out that i worked for non-governmental org or NGO in which i liked it so much not only for i consider that at least i spend my life for someone else, but also in that field did  i find freedom of creativity and thinking, if you'd like. and that's how it leads me here. activism if you'd like brings me here. well..that's what i think.

if the question now is what to do in future? hmm... it's not that i don't have things in mind as i always have. but, i'm supposedly to come back home after the two years spending studying here. that was the initial plan. but, in the middle of the first year of being here, things seem changed. not to blame on anybody else as i don't have to and it's not a good thing to do, and perhaps it's my mistake as well why the plan changed, but i guess life sometimes is surprising. so, here i am que sera, sera.

next december, i'm going to have a presentation on my research and soon after i complete it, i will reward me an ear piercing.. that's no a bad reward for one self for b'day and my study, right? actually, i want to have a tattoo, but i'm still thinking abt it.