20 Things About Me

Few weeks ago, I came to find the list of "25 things about me" which I wrote about a year ago. But I realized some of them do not apply to me anymore. So, I figured it'd be fun to write one more list for this blog! After days of leaving this post into a draft, here it is my "other" version of 20 things about me:

1. I have a weakness in accessories, especially necklaces and hijabs of different colors and styles. I have most colors and I don’t know why I keep buying new ones. I have 2 boxes of necklaces and they’re already overloaded. Gotta buy a new box :-S
2. The stupidest thing I've done in my life was: being almost stranded in Changi Airport because I missed my flight. Why did I miss my flight, you wonder, when I already had 6 hours of transit? Well, I was browsing on the internet and didn't realize that the boarding gate was closed! How stupid was that?!? Hahaha. Good thing I brought some money with me, otherwise I couldn't catch the next flight (I had to pay around Sing $150 🙁 *sigh*).
3. I always feel like my brain badly needs a memory upgrade. I am usually the only person among my elementary school friends who can’t recall some people who used to be my classmates. I can’t remember the "gossips" going around during High School, whilst my friends still have good memories about them. Yes, I forget stuff very easily. The only thing I do to remember it is to write that down: in the blog or in my diary (which I used to have looooong time ago).
4. My voice is very loud and high pitch. One day my friends and I were in a bar at our hostel in Antwerp, Belgium. A friend of mine told me she heard my laugh from our room in the second floor 😀 . Somehow I really need people to tell me to lower my voice, otherwise I don’t realize it!
5. I don’t do sports. AT ALL. And I’m not proud of it. I used to swim regularly but I stopped a long time ago. Hmm… wait a minute. Is cycling in the flat Netherlands considered a sport? 😛
6. Not a lot of people know that my real full name consists of not two, not three, but SIX words. The immigration people told me that he couldn’t put my full name in the front page of my passport, because it’s too long. So he only put the first three names and put a stamp "see page 5". So, if you want to see my real full name, you have to refer to page 5 in my passport 🙂
7. I have this habit of forgetting some words I intend to say when I talk. Every time I talk in English, I "think" in Indonesian. And every time I talk in Indonesian, I "think" in English. My brain gets confused 😀 . My former housemate Mayu was the only person who could correctly guess what I wanted to say. Nobody could replace her. Even now.
8. The best thing about being ME is the fact that I can eat as many foods as I want without having to worry about my weight! 😀 My friends who lived with me under one roof knew that I always kept a huge inventory of chocolates and sweets. I just can't live without them.
9. I’m not sure if I’m a chocoholic, though. To give you an idea, I eat chocolates every single day. I always have either chocolate cereals or bread with Nutella for breakfast. I eat some chocolates after lunch (and if I don’t have lunch, I treat chocolates as my lunch — that means I eat chocolates more than I normally eat). I also eat some before and/or after dinner. When I’m hungry and have nothing to eat, I grab chocolates to fill my stomach in (i.e. chocolate is my emergency food). And I usually keep few of them in my bag, in case my anemia kicks in. So, do you think I am a chocoholic? 😀
10. I don’t drink tea. And I try so hard to avoid drinking coffee. I’ve also stopped drinking soda for the past 2.5 years. I sacrifice this for the sake of my two kidneys. But I do drink a lot of water!! I always have a bottle of water with me wherever I go as I get thirsty very easily.
11. Because of my nature (see #3), I have NO favorite movies. No matter how good the movie is, I tend to forget it very easily. Movies just come and go. But I do have favorite actors/actresses though: Denzel Washington (I've watched most of his movies!), Hugh Jackman, John Cusack, Meryl Streep, and Keira Knightley.
12. I'm the kind of person who can sleep almost everywhere in any situation; except on the airplane. If I were allowed to sleep on the floor of the cabin, I would have done that! I can also fall asleep very easily. When I sleep, I'm almost dead. If I'm awake in the middle of the night, that means I'm too stressed 😀
13. I'm scared of frogs and geckos. I loath them. I'm even scared of entering my room if I find one single gecko wondering around… That's one of the things I hate about Indonesia. There are just TOO MANY geckos!!! $#%&
14. I'm called with many different names. My family calls me Lia. My Indonesian friends call me Amel or Mellie (these two names are actually created by them. Yes, seriously!). Some even call me Amal or Malia. My non-Indonesian friends call me Amalia. The truth is that, I like Amalia better. It's easy to pronounce in any languages and easy to remember (Dutch people just need to remember the cute little Princess in order to remember my name! hehehe). Amalia is already a short name, why would you shorten it again? 😀 But of course I don't mind to be called with any of those nicknames (except for Lia though, because that's only reserved for my family and relatives hehehe). Whatever suits you!
15. I have a birthmark on the left side of my nose. Somehow it's not visible in any of my photographs, so you can't really see it unless you meet me in person. My dad joked when I was a little kid that if I ever got lost, it'd be easy to identify me because I had such a visible mark on my nose 😀
16. I cook because I want to eat good foods, not because I enjoy it. I don't wanna spend too much time on cooking, so I have a rather odd habit of cooking foods in huge amount. I'd put them in the fridge and heat them in the microwave when I want to eat (usually only for dinner). So you can imagine that I eat the same thing every single day for the duration of one week. I don't really mind. It's the fastest way to get my stomach full.
17. No matter how long I slept, I almost always end up sleeping in class. It all started when I was in High School. My teachers knew that I liked to sleep in the class — especially when the class was so boring. It then became a habit until now. I tried so many ways to pay attention and be awake but it always failed. I even tried to sit right in front of the lecturer, but I still ended up sleeping!!! I did try to chew gums or drink coffee during the lecture though, but I ended up not paying attention. Basically, it's just so hard for me to be awake and pay extra attention to the lecture!!!
18. I lived in Indonesia for only 3 years in my entire life (that was during High School). Compared to 5 years in Egypt, 10 years in Saudi Arabia, and 4 years in Australia. Many people are surprised to find that I've never actually been to Bali. The furthest city I went to in Java island was Bandung. And the only city I visited outside of Java was Palembang. To be honest, I have no time to travel when I'm in my own country because I spend my time mostly with my family when I'm there. And I'm usually in Indonesia for the maximum of two months. So I don't have that much time to travel. But I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel around my own country one day!
19. I can't speak any ethnic languages or dialects, although my dad is a Buginese who can speak and write the language. The only language spoken at our home is Indonesian. I'm ashamed of it, to be honest. But I guess, that's the consequences (well, not really 😛 ). I can speak a bit of Arabic and German though. And I'm currently learning Dutch. Ja, ik spreek een beetje Nederlands.
20. I love to think about future. One of my favorite is to plan on exciting things I'd like to do when I have kids. Like… scrapbooking, caravan trip, err… wait a minute… I forgot to write them down! Now I couldn't remember the rest of them! :-S

Ok, that's it for now 😀 .