The First Week of January 2011

Hello there!

This is the first week of 2011 and I'd like to share things happened this week. It's been a great week, on Tuesday (4/1) I resumed my piano class after a brief succession of holidays, so my fingers were a bit stiff. Nevertheless somehow I managed to play well and I learn a new nice piece of Beyer. I'd never thought that the guy could compose a nice piece like this one (he usually composed for educational purposes, so don't expect a really sweet sounding piece from him). Here's the score..

On Wednesday (5/1), I stayed up late in my office, accompanying a colleague who's handling SNMPTN 2011 Project, which is the centralized examination for entering national universities. The bank where I work was attending the bidding for the payment system of the aforementioned exam. While idle waiting for the colleague, I noticed a Siamese fighting fish (or Betta) belonged to another colleague. I had known this fish since my childhood, for its fancy coloration and aggressive behavior was such an amusement for children in my country. Children used to put glasses containing a single male fish side by side, and watching the fish - driven by their aggressive nature - flaring their gills and spreading their enormous fins.

On Thursday (6/1) my Directorate held "Rapat Kerja" at Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta. The theme was mining, so everybody dressed up as mine worker, with the vest, helmet, head lamp and so on. Too bad I did not take any picture, it was so fun. By the way, lately the price of chili skyrocketed so high that it reached IDR 120,000 a kilo from the normal price IDR 20,000 a kilo. The increase was driven by massive failure in chili production caused by diseases. When we ate at a Padang Restaurant (which is well known for its hot taste), we found that some of the menu were having significant decrease of the "hotness", which probably due to the price rising.

On Saturday (8/1), I went to Cilegon with some colleagues from another Directorate to attend a wedding. It took almost 2 hours to reach the city, but no regret, since this happy guy held a wedding reception in traditional style, with magnificent costumes and decoration..

Finally, today (Sunday 9/1) I went to Bandung with my uncle and aunt, visiting my sister who's attending a university there. Bandung is located at high altitude, with up-and-down terrain, magnificent views, and cool air. We stopped at Sierra Cafe, which was located at one of the highest point of the area, which enabled us to observed the city from above. Too bad we had to get home on the same day, I wished I could stayed up late to see the night view of the city, must be gorgeous!

That's for now, folks. See you on the next post!
=)