Ho Ho Ho :D Christmas is coming! I know It's three days 'till Christmas but this year's Christmas is absolutely the most memorable and exciting one for me. 

All my life, I've never been a religious type of person. For years I used to go to church only once a year (that time I couldn't decide yet). On the other hand, actually I think going to church once every week doesn't make you a good person either (I'm not saying going to church is bad ya. You know what I mean). What's the use of being in church, praying and praising God while the rest six days of the week you act like a leader of some gangs outside? I'm not gonna judge anybody. As for me, I hold on to the belief that it's not only what you do, what people see that matters, but also what's in your heart. Err ... I don't know. Only God knows. 

I had thought of converting to Catholic during high school period / shortly after graduation. I cannot really call it converting though. It was stated I was a Catholic but I grew up learning Christian because of school. Then later I attended a Catholic one as well and went to both churches.....(It's a long story but please take a note, I had never been baptized as either one). I went through a long learning process (I still have to learn a lot of course) after having delayed for years. So happy that I've finally decided my faith and I believe that I've made the right and best decision for myself. Yes, I've been baptized now as a Catholic.

I was emotionally touched during the baptism ceremonial. I had teary eyes, in case you're wondering. 

The priest said, "Aku membaptis Engkau, Lawrence, dalam nama Bapa dan Putera dan Roh Kudus." as he was pouring holy water three times onto my forehead. "Amin.", I answered, wholeheartedly. These words .. will remain in my memory. I am saved.

Next, he anointed me with oil on my forehead and I was handed a piece of white cloth as a symbol of new life, a lighted candle and gift/souvenir from the church. Then he fed me my first communion in 2 forms. I had my first communion. Yay!♡

my friends, the ones taking my photos, were present on my baptism day. of course, photobombs everywhere.

and a group photo. can you even spot me? lol

Truthfully, for the first time in my life, I feel that I am a much better person spiritually. I'm so thankful. :') (I wanna thank everyoneeeee!)

Beyond happy.
It was the happiest me.

I feel blessed. Thank Lord.

I am reborn,

Lawrence Novita

Yo! :D Notice some changes on my blog? Yup, I decided to change my template from pastel to monochrome one. I wanted to make it fresher, simple but professional  (yas I wanna look professional writing nonsense...). Whatcha think? Is it Good? :P By the way, editing the template got me .. fed up? Firstly, I'm not familiar (read:understand) with all HTML codes that quite hurt my eyes. Secondly, I had to think of an alternative to edit things that's sadly actually editable with HTML (lacking in knowledge :( ). For example, on the header part, I had to replace it with a picture instead of text since the actual size of the title that came along with this template was gigantic and not looking good (Originally the title was a picture that came in separated file. When I pasted the template, it became random font). I tried to figure out how to resize it and reposition my tagline (was on the side before) but nothing worked. Then, replacing it with a picture? What can you expect from a photoshop illiterate like me? Canva.com is the life saver ♡ It helps you to design pictures, cards, or Facebook covers you desire with lots of backgrounds, styles, fonts, etc and it's FREE. They provide you everything! You just have to be creative. In my case, I wanted a simple black and white one yet catchy to suit the theme so the above picture is the result. Nice, isn't it? hehe. Do check it out if you need help in designing. :)

Anyone who's close to me knows that I eat like elephant and never gain weight. Is it a nightmare or luck? I used to think it was a nightmare, I never had self-confidence. However, what's passed is past. I guess I'm kinda lucky that I can eat as much as I want without worrying how much weight I'm gonna put on although I do worry about how much harmful substances I might have put in my body. But, lately, I've been eating less than my normal portion I don't know why *tells self not to get skinnier*. Eating the same cooking frequently bores me, especially home cooking. Whenever I went out to try new cafés, I only ordered their desserts too, something sweet (I've been craving for ice cream!). I lost my appetite. -_-

As the result, I've been snacking a lot more. I put more snacks into my shopping cart, from sweets, my favorite Chitato potato chips to some imported snacks I have never tried before, I grabbed them all including this new Leo PopCorn! haha

I thought it won't be THAT good since Leo's other products  (potato chips) ain't one of the snacks I wanna consume every time. But this one is SO good! The caramel coats the whole popcorn perfectly, each of em! The sweetness pops from the very first bite (I don't wanna compare, but look at the popcorn sold at the local XXI cinema. You can tell how barely sweet it is from the color). Not to mention, the size is much bigger than any kinda popcorn I've tried my entire life. The grain must really have popped. LOL. It's so cheap, only cost you IDR 8.000. 

maybe I expected too much. this was snapped before I touched it. they should consider making the package smaller or something to save the environment. it's 80% air. SMH.

Despite how tasty it is, you're not recommended to consume any type of processed food for daily basis ya, judging from how much preservatives and chemicals they contain that will slowly impact on not only your metabolism system but also your health. Once in a while is okay lah. :D

That's my current favorite snack. What's yours?

P.S : This is not an ad.

Hello! I'm back! I'm back!

What a long absence! I was gonna publish this post in the middle of September (and it's December now!). Something was not right. -_-   Stressing over things that are not even worth my time does affect my moods. I haven't been happy so I can't write. Bunch of things going on in my life right now. Maybe I am being too much but I feel like this is probably the 'down' in my life while actually it's the 'up' I'm supposed to be happy about. Too much thoughts taking control of my brain. I'm worried. I'm afraid. They're distracting me, making frowns on my face. I hope things will turn out well eventually. 

I told you before that I wanted to write a review about something, remember? Finally it's up! One Sunday in September I went for a dim sum at Kini Hotel with a friend and thought I can write something about it.
September 2015 was my first dim sum experience ever so everything was new for me (I'm so late, aren't I?). Kini Hotel itself is already well known for years for their dim sum. Why did I just try it? Simply because what comes to my mind when you say dim sum is steamed food, such as dumpling, shumai, mantou etc. I've tried these many many times before and thought the ones in Kini Hotel shouldn't be much different (in fact they were totally different *shame on me*). Besides, I don't really follow what's trending. You may assume I'm stingy but I don't care how many people have been to a luxury / big restaurant or hotel for the same food I can get at other places or cafes with more reasonable price (unless I can afford it hahaha). Another thing, I'm kinda lazy to get dressed up only for eating purpose. lol. You most likely don't expect me to wear a random t-shirt, shorts and flip flops in a luxury restaurant, do you?

Alright. Once I hit the restaurant all I could see was people everywhere and it felt like I was attending a wedding party. FYI, the restaurant itself is commonly used to celebrate certain occasions/events, for instance birthday and wedding party. They also set the tables as how they normally will do on wedding party and  had some wedding decorations from previous event left in the restaurant too. They had big round red tables and small square ones for 4. The dim sum itself is only available until 2 PM (my friend told me if I'm not mistaken) so you better come earlier if you don't wanna miss it.

Thank God I came along with a friend who's a dim sum expert to guide and help a dim sum virgin like me (ok my other friend made up this term) on how to order or choose the food. It could've been awkward if I came by myself, really. Having said this, I feel like I've been living in Mariana Trench all these years. Why did I not know such thing, eh?

I don't know the names of the food ordered. Don't put all the blames on me, they were not written on the carts. LOL. Though they must be written clearly on the bill but ... my friend had it. *lack of information* *cries* So I provided some pictures below ~

I randomly ordered it only because I found it unique visually. It looked pretty simple like a piece of tissue with chicken (the orange color) filling. definitely ordering this on my next visit.

I've tried this countless times already and I don't know what I was thinking that day to have picked it.

Superb crispy balls! My friend recommended this. it's fried bread with shrimp in it. I fell in love at first sight.

Everything we ordered was super good and I loved loved 'em! Too bad, for the beverage they only had iced tea and a pot of warm Chinese tea that can be refilled as much as you desire with no extra charges. I wish they provided more options instead of these two? I disliked the somewhat bitter taste of the Chinese tea too... Err .. Meanwhile, the price was quite reasonable. Only IDR 145.000,- for these all.

These all for 2 tummies.

The Chinese Tea

That's all for today! Also, please pray for me so that I can feel better soon and gain my happy mood back. Thank you for reading. ♥

If you actually observe all 6 games I mentioned above, they're all heart-pumping ones. It's not that I am an adrenaline junkie. I just think that these are games that people rarely dare to try so they must be real challenging and adding them to your wish list is nothing wrong, right? I'm not saying that I definitely am gonna try all of them unless I get the chance, the money and of course, the guts to do so. LOL.

Wassup?

Right now I'm chillin' in my bed with my blanket wrapping my entire body. I love that kind of warm feeling in it and not to mention, the very dim light in my rather cold room. It boosts up my writing mood rapidly! ! I just need this app you can find on your smartphones that actually play the sounds of numerous kinds of rain to make it perfect. It exists! You can search for it now! HAHA. 

Last month I already wrote about my birthday and now ... another birthday post I wanna share with y'all! This time it's my friend's, Lily! I hope I won't bore you guys with the same topic again and again. I just think there's nothing wrong with the birthday topic? Besides, I'm stuck!! I absolutely love writing but lately there's no blog worthy stuff that I can share here and on the other hand I have to keep my blog updated or else it might be neglected and gone forever without a trace. I'd like to write a review but frankly speaking, I have like 0 stuff to review. *lost for words* Newbie's problem?  Don't you think I have way too many excuses now? *sigh* Err ... I have some ideas I've been thinking to write on the upcoming posts though. I'll try my best! *fingers crossed* Just don't leave me! Okay now let me finish the rest of this post.

I'd like to introduce you to this lovely girl (I'm not promoting her, ya). Lily is one of the members of 1DF. It's not an official group or organization that affiliates with big scale companies and all that. Like, who can't tell? HAHA. Ok I'm just joking and it's nothing funny and I know I'm so bad at it and I'm gonna stop. Basically, 1DF is just a term that I made up myself that means 1 decade friends (how absurd it sounds...) simply because we've (I and Lily) been friends since the unexpected kindergarten years. There's no exact number of people in this group. Originally it was 5, currently it has evolved to 8 people. We sure will add in more old friends so that it'll be easier for us to communicate and meet up like this to celebrate birthday, sing K, etc. We do miss old days yo.

Just FYI, my mom and Lily's also have been friends since ages ago. Even her mom used to bring lunch for us although I'm not her kid! She always prepared 2 portions. How sweet of her.

Lily gathered us at a newly opened branch of Ayam Dadakan at 7PM. Later on before 7PM, my friend July told me she was on her way to Lily's birthday and I thought I'd go 5 or 10 minutes after so that I won't be the FIRST to be there as I know most of my friends (including me myself) won't be going at the exact time they tell you they are. Let's say they're gonna drag another 5, 10 or 15 mins and the possibility of me waiting awkwardly for them is pretty high. I hate waiting! Traumatic? haha. Turned out everyone was there waiting for this queen (read : me). I was the LAST to arrive. I felt a bit guilty for that like .. God my house is considered near from the restaurant. July revealed that she already dragged some time but I was still late. Shame on me! -,-

The place was quite spacious and not crowded during weekdays which I loved the most. It felt like it was ours. haha! 

Soon, the waitress came to take our orders. I didn't snap any pictures of the food due to, you know, poor phone camera. T_T (I'm dying to get a proper camera!) The food was yaaaa just like how an average Indonesian food should taste like. The salted fish fried rice I ordered was okay lah despite having too much scallions in it. I asked for half fried egg and BAM, the yolk wasn't even runny. I'm so picky and sensitive when it comes to fried eggs I tell ya! 

Then she helped us taking pictures. Sorry, mbak!

Countless selfies after we ate up all the food

The street light that looked like sunset. LOL. Credit goes to the boys who were tired of our selfies.

Proceed to the last session since the boys started to yell. Belly suggested her to pose like this. He's a photographer after all.

Can you spot all 4 layers of the cake? The second and third one were nothing but buttercream! O_O Normally I would throw away all the heavy and thick buttercream and icing (I dislike em) leaving the cake only but this one was different! I don't know what sorta cream it really was but it sure was very very soft, smooth and it didn't have this thick feeling in my mouth when I chew it all together with the cake. I could barely feel it. Superb! The structure was a bit like yogurt that you can find in J.Co donuts and as for the taste, I can tell it wasn't it. If you know what it is based on my descriptions please kindly leave a comment down below. lol

Me , Elisa and Lily

Elisa's a long-lost friend of mine that I hadn't seen since the the fourth or fifth grade of elementary school! We attended the same school but she moved before we graduated so no wonder that she only remembered me and Lily (yay me!). She completely forgot the five others. Tell you I'm the chosen one! :p

And originally that night I wore a blue floral dress but then changed to this casual one. (Thank God I did 'cause everyone else dressed up casually). A Simpsons (a Bart one) t-shirt paired with a flare skirt and my brown vintage shoes. I suck at choosing outfits.

That's a wrap! Thanks for reading and I'll see you on my next post.

Have a great day!

Welcome back to my blog! :D Lately,  I've been getting mad easily I don't know why. I feel so irritated even by a slight mistake. Been nagging a lot as well. Wait, nagging is my nature. It's not that I want to nag and I know I am soooo annoying. But have some people thought just how annoying they are to me that I can't help but nag? LOL. I never take anything seriously though! Just let me nag and I'll be relaxed. The next 5 minutes I'll be fine like nothing has happened.*lol* Ok I'm using the word 'nag' too much now. 

Alright this post, I must say, has completely nothing to do with my current mood or my nagging ability or habit. It just suddenly popped up in my mind that I wanted to write it although I'm not in the mood to write (lazy to be exact). I must have been crazy to nag in a blog post, don't you think?

Honestly, I've finished writing everything in this post for days now but I truly don't have enough confidence in me to let people read something that you're gonna read here because .... it just sounds a little bit personal and I don't want to treat a blog as an online diary. If you followed my previous posts, does my blog sound like it already? HAHAHA. Anyway, this is gonna be a random yet interesting (?) babble where I wanna talk about my personal experience that sometimes become a problem and I'm quite certain that tons of people and probably you, who is reading this, face the same problem as me.

I realized having this mad look during high school years. There were times when I and my best friends chit chatting about random stuff including sharing each other's impression when we first met. I was somewhat surprised to hear them telling me something like, "When I first saw you I thought you were arrogant. You just never smiled!" I was all like, really? What did I do wrong? The same thing happened when I attended a local college here to continue my studies. This time I wasn't surprised being told how I looked mad when we first got to know each other. They thought I was this arrogant nerd who talked to nobody. And of course, advised me to smile more.

Me 24/7? | credit

I've always loved making new friends, you know? I love adding new people in my life circle. The problem is, I can never make the first move no matter what even just some small talk. I'm awkward and will always feel like it. What makes it worse is, I have mad face. Geez. Then I will have some people giving me bad first impressions when they first see me as always that I'm used to hearing it now. In fact, once you get to know me I'm crazier than what you would think about me. It's true that I'm more of a listener and don't talk much unless I really know you but I love joking around too! Talking about some random stupid stuff and all. 

Being judged how mad, upset, annoying, arrogant, unfriendly, angry, sad, grumpy, etc you NAME it I looked, at first was not a big deal. I was cool with it and I still am. But somehow I gotta admit that the more I hear it, the more it starts to annoy and slap me hard. HAHAH. I mean, it saddens me because it's something I cannot change. I can't imagine how even uglier I look with that bitchy resting face. I don't hate it when people advise me to smile more but I'm tired (or sick?) of hearing it. How do you expect me to smile when I'm reading a book with my neutral mad face while in fact I am feeling nothing but focusing on the book? How do you expect me to smile when I'm sitting in a restaurant waiting for my food? How do you expect me to smile when I'm standing in line for a movie ticket? I must be crazy. LOL. Smiling is an activity that takes energy, no matter how tiny it takes. Call me exaggerating this but, have you scolded your friend for taking too much time to snap your picture that your teeth start to dry up for smiling too long? You feel me? *puppy eyes*

I wish I didn't have to force a smile on my face when I meet new people so that they won't get me wrong. I don't know what I can do about it. Perhaps by make up? :/ What I really wanna say is that, it's just my face. It will stay like it when I'm chill as hell. I can assure you that I'm NOT one of those girls who acts cute, sweet and all you will find out there but I'm really nice (although nag a lot) once I know you.

Do you have any advice or tips for me?

How is everyone doing? I'm writing this in a good mood since it's raining outside! Fyi, it's been hot, dry and dusty for the past 1 or 2 weeks without a drop of rain. Blah .. it's like summer all year long in Indonesia. Tropical country's problem.

First of all, I know that I should've blogged about this days ago but my lazy self kept procrastinating everything. Besides, I had to rest more and sleep earlier though I always end up going to bed every night at 11.30PM and regret it the next morning. I've been out of energy these days. xD

Ok, let me tell a little story..

When I was a kid I often got invited to a friend's birthday party in the neighborhood. The parents prepared the foods, cake, balloons, souvenirs and even clowns to build up the party atmosphere. Then we would be singing, playing games, eating the always-exist-on-birthday Nasi Kuning and get ourselves a souvenir before going home. Does any of you remember? Nevertheless, these all never happened to me as my parents never really had time for us due to work. I had never had birthday cakes before until I turned 13 or 14 yo, my first cake ever (my second one was on my 19th birthday) and it wasn't from mom but my aunty. Loooong time ago there were times when mom would just cook some foods for us without the presence of birthday cake. I mean, what is a birthday without a birthday cake? Kids love those pretty cakes! Thus, I'm not used to / into celebrating birthday or having party. It feels awkward. But .... I gotta say that those (celebrations) I had this year must have been the most memorable ones in my 22 years of life.

Well, you know I'm not a kid anymore and so lazy and having a DIY or formally organized party is not my thang. I repeat, I don't like parties. Just a small dinner with some special ones will do. I never really celebrated my birthday in a special way, so this year I decided to summon (Why did I use this word?) up my friends at Terasky to have a dinner. It's a restaurant located on the 8th floor of Transera Hotel. Our first time having dinner at a rooftop restaurant so the place was kind of special. The ambiance was cozy and romantic with nice view, suits perfectly for couple dinner. The waitresses were hella nice and polite in taking orders. Good service is all that matters for me! As for the food, they didn't have many menus for you to choose. I'm telling you two of them, Ayam Bakar Nusa Dua Bali and Bloody Aloe Vera. Yes, these were what I ordered. Pardon me.