The Rookie Tries: Baking for Christmas

Ho ho ho!

It's actually been ages since we put up a Christmas tree. So to make up for it, I baked a cake! A chocolate chiffon cake, to be exact. I iced it so, so that it may somehow look like those Christmassy door wreaths that people hang during Christmas.

It was fun and hard at the same time decorating the cake. Well what did I expect...I am a rookie at these kinds of things, after all. Or was. Haha! Just kidding. I made a lot of mistakes. Good thing I was able to cover them up pretty well ;)

I wanted the pink buttercream to be red, but the supermarket that we went to only had what they called 'rose red' and orange. Turns out that rose red was pink, but oh well. The green icing was bought from my Singapore trip, and when it sort of dried up, suprisingly went so well against the softness cake and the pink buttercream :9

Not-so-Christmas-themed cupcakes made from spare batter :9

(Clockwise from top left: little roses, heart, daisy-ish flower, star)

My Christmas Eve

Hello world!

It's a bit late, but MERRY CHRISTMAS!

May good tidings come to you and all your kin!

May there be joy and peace on Earth!

I wish this was my Christmas tree, but no.

We went ice-skating on Christmas Eve <3 

We don't have snow here, but we do have ice. Everyone wanted to get in the mood though, so it was really crowded. If you plan on visiting Sky Rink at Mall Taman Anggrek, you may want to come on a weekday, not on a big holiday or on weekends. The rink is always crowded, but chances are there will be less kids falling over, and less reckless people zooming in and out. We didn't have too much trouble with the crowd though. So if you're a pro (I'm not saying that we are in any way ;P), you'll have no trouble finding your path around the ice. There's always people-free spots on the ice. Teehee!

In the morning, we went to a local beauty parlor and got manicures together. This was my first time getting a manicure. We all picked our designs from my friend's iPod. I went for tribal designs partly because I'm fangirling over a tribal video game character these days I think tribal designs are cool.



 

The End of the World?

Hi!

It is widely known that December 21st, 2012 is the end of the Mayan calendar. Therefore people have been saying that in 2012, this wonderful world of ours will end (no sarcasm there; the world itself is really a wonderful place <3).

Of course, I felt scared. Petrified, actually. The first time I heard this, time froze for a few moments.

A million of thoughts floated around inside my mind. It was to be the end. Not just any end. It was the end of the world. When all life on Earth was to cease to exist. Including us humans. All the exotic floras and faunas that roam the face of our darling Earth. All coming to an end just like that. The world was to be forgotten (unless the Martians are willing to be witnesses of our existence later).

But witness to who else?

I was also wondering about HOW the world was going to end. Was I supposed to...I don't know...go poof? Perish while sitting on my desk? Fade away like a ghost? Disappear into thin air like a ninja? That would be cool though. I've always wanted to have ninja-like skills. So badass >;D

Why would it end in 2012? Why so soon? Because the Mayans said so, you say? That's okay, I won't argue against your beliefs. I would love to talk to King Pacal himself for his views on this topic. If only he's still alive...sigh.

But it's now December 21st, 2012. And I am still alive.

Singapore Getaway

Hello!

I haven't updated this blog in more than two weeks. Yes, I know that's bad, but I've a perfectly legitimate excuse. I went to Singapore for a week ;D This was my first trip to Singapore in the last two years.
 
Singapore is a really modern and attractive place. It's also widely known here as a shopper's paradise, especially its famous Orchard Road, which boasts a wide array of shops catering to many tastes. My friend declared the Gardens by the Bay a must-see, and surely it was.

Supertree :)

Language Learning - Listening by Ear

Hello again!

With this post, I begin my series of articles focusing on language learning tips. If you're in the process of learning or studying a language, whichever stage/level you may be in, I hope these tips may be of help!

This is my most effective method of picking up new vocabulary, sentence structures, common phrases said by the native speakers, and a few inside jokes - listening by ear.

What I mean is specifically the use of televised media (dramas, reality/variety shows and movies) and songs. I would never have gotten to my current levels (Japanese and Korean, especially) without them.

I would recommend learning the basics and pronunciation ways of the language first, so that the listening process may go more swimmingly. This way, when you listen and try to write the new word you picked up down, there will be less chances of misspelling it. Choose those with subs, because you will want to learn first, then test yourself with the raw (unsubbed) ones if you like.

Then at a certain point, cover the subs or simply don't look at them. Try to guess the topic of the conversation and then the point of each dialogue, even if the subs tempt you. Of course you don't have to do this for every dialogue you hear.

 

Drama: Seigi no Mikata (Episode 1)

Blog URL Change

Hi!

I've decided to change my blog's URL, because I feared that the previous one was too hard to remember and hard to spell out. So I've changed it to a much easier one. It's the same name as the title, and is simple as: The Linguist Rookie.

Well, I do hope I won't regret it. I do know I'll regret it if I don't do it now. Even now, I think it's a bit too late, since the search engines have already indexed my blog and the previous URL. Now I have to wait until the search engines realise my new URL :S

I'm sorry for being such a noob at this.

buuut...I believe this is easier for others to remember, so yeah. Fingers crossed that this change will bring me more readers.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy your visit to my blog. I will keep on updating (at least once a week, sometimes more often if I'm not too busy with my book).

Another post is coming up soon!

アリシア

Now listening: Back in Time (시간을 거슬러) - Lyn (How I wish I was back in time, then I could have made this change earlier :P)

Traffic Jam Survival

Hello!

In this post, I shall tell you how to survive a traffic jam ('macet' in Indonesian; it literally means 'congested', 'stuck' or 'blocked'), or simply when you are stuck in an immobilised contraption for an average to unacceptable amount of time. 

I live in a place where your patience is regularly trained. I myself can't understand how we Jakartans have been able to put up with this ongoing problem that has been haunting us for countless years. I don't drive (yet), but I've been through my fair share of idle road time. Some people may gone through worse, though. Like a whole day getting to Puncak, and sleeping in your car for the night. This may seem like an unforgettable adventure to some,  With all the horrible traffic jams happening nowadays, we barely go out of our area! -__-"

Sadly, no matter how much you believe in luck, it's never guaranteed that you won't ever meet with this...

 

Or this.

Simply Garlic Bread

Well, I'm back with a really simple recipe :D

I know this recipe is basically omnipresent in the Internet. But this was actually my first time, hehe. I've always been a big fan of Italian food, and garlic bread has always been one of my favourite side dishes.

We decided to buy a baguette on a sudden impulse. We haven't eaten this in ages (I mean like, a decade or so). We were skeptical about the taste after all those years, but it definitely didn't disappoint. My brother especially loved it! And my brother is one heck of a picky kid. He's one of those people blessed with an excellent metabolism; he can consume a bag of chips and as much Coke as he wants without gaining a single kilogram. He rarely exercises, must I add. Stays glued to this computer seat for hours. Okay, enough of me ranting about that. So, here's what we did:

Cadeaux de Corée et Japon :)

Hello again, world!

It still thrills me to think that I have my own little space in the humongous worldwide network of webs that is the Internet xD I feel like a person! I wonder if that actually makes sense since nobody is a real human online. Lately I've been thinking about what else to write besides random rants about my interests and life, and honestly it's a bit difficult for me to focus on just one thing. I will focus this blog on one very broad topic though - art!

Speaking of writing, I'm having a hard time right now. I just got another idea for another book, even though I still have like, six others waiting in line to be written. One of the six is the first part of my trilogy. I'm not even sure if it's a good idea for a first-timer to be attempting a trilogy. Anyway I'm on Chapter 11, and moving on to the climax pretty soon, so it's too late to turn back now. Haha! Maybe I'll write down the details of my book here, but I'm not sure. I'm purty shy :P

I've recently received a letter from a wonderful aunt (my friend's mother's friend) who lives in Japan :) My cousin just came back from Korea around a week ago, and she gave me these wonderful souvenirs. I totally wasn't expecting these, and needless to say I was oh-so-very excited upon receiving them. I've always wanted to go to Korea! Like, so so badly! One of the things I'm going to do if I go there is to go and eat the real 짜장면 (jjajangmyeon - Chinese-style noodles in black bean sauce) and see if it really does taste like the instant ones, accompanied by a nice little portion of 단무지 (danmuji - pickled radish/daikon slices). I think 단무지 is the only pickled food I like.

The Rookie Tries: Abstract Painting

The title says it all! The main reason I decided to do this was because I still had a reasonable amount of acrylic paint left from my art class in high school ;P That painting, and a few others belonging to my friends, never returned to the hands of their owners. It's vexing, because it was my first painting on a canvas and I spent a reasonable amount of time on it, so I really wanted to treasure it. Ah, the sentimental value it had despite its lack of neatness! Haha! Another reason was that I wanted to see just what I could do with my nooby painting skills.

I made my first ever canvas painting for art class, so this is my second. To be really accurate, this also isn't my first try at abstract painting; it's my second. I made my first one on a canvas without a frame in 2007, following a manual. The colour scheme I used for it was purely blue, but on this one, as per my brother's suggestion, I decided to use all the colours related to mint. I'm really loving mint lately. My brother loves green and I love blue, so no debates were involved. Not that my brother actually had anything to do with the making of this painting, but it's good to ask for suggestions from others :P

Before I began, I stole (read: temporarily borrowed without permission) my brother's brushes and acrylic paint tubes. He won't be using them anytime soon anyway, since he's practically always glued to his computer. I had my own remnants-of-art-class paint, but I peeked into his, and to my surprise, he had two tubes of different shades of green. One was phthalo green, a dark shade of green, and the other was light green, a grassier hue.

 

An empty 20cmx20cm square canvas, brushes of various shapes, a palette and tubes of acrylic paint. I love and hate the fact that acrylic paint dries so quickly.You can't see it in the picture, but I had thinly sketched random quadrilaterals in a mint colour pencil to aid my colouring.

The finished result?