what do I do now

My latest post is dated on Aug, 4th 2007. It was more than four months. During that period, I have battled through projects, presentations, and my second master thesis. My final exam finished on Nov 28, and my thesis is ready for submission tomorrow *fingers crossed*. With a lot learned in writing my first thesis a few months ago, this second one is rather a breeze. It is currently being hard bound and ready for collection tomorrow. Yeah!

So what do I do now?

I read A LOT. Man, I literally go to NLB everytime I finish reading a book. I watched some movies from internet, too *oops*. However, as I never like watching movies, I got damn bored only after a few days of movie marathon. Well, three hours a day is already a marathon to me =).

I read SO much that my eyes hurt. Well, my eyes have never been the strongest in my anatomy anyway. I read novels (after exams, I couldn't afford---brain wise---to read anything more serious than that). My choices have been Jill Mansell (most hilarious!!), Catherine Alliott (not that impressed, honestly), Kate Thompson (giving me a glimpse of the beautiful landscape in Ireland). Honestly? I am tired and bored: too much kissing in them =). So I also borrow my all time favorites, none other than The Famous Five (currently reading "Five Go to Billycock Hill"). What a change: cycling, camping, tea time, milk, ice cream, napping on heather to replace kissing, flirting, broken hearts and what nots.

As I can multi-read (but somehow not multi-task), I also read Hillary Clinton's autobiography "Living History" concurrently. Sprawling on my other side of bed, you can also find: cook books (laugh if you want to, I know you will), another Jill Mansell's (haven't started reading yet) and "FIKIR - Catatan Seorang Pendidik" (Sr. Francesco Marianti's biography) that my friend just returned this afternoon.

My eyes still hurt. My mom asked me to stop reading. "You've read a lot when you study, why do you still want to read now?" My mom paid us a visit a few weeks ago and she was appalled to see me reading inside MRT, buses, car, while waiting for food in restaurants, while reserving a table in food courts, when she tried on shoes (that's a cue for me and my brother to find a seat and read our books), when she went shopping, in the room, while waiting for my turn to shower, etc.

How can I stop doing something that I really enjoy? So today I decide to do something that have actually been in my agenda for months (or years): varnish my paintings.

My paintings, completed or partially done, and my blank canvases are stashed in few places. I think I am not the most organized person, and the fact that I still haven't had my own house and space does not help either. Add to that the fact that I've moved places quite a number of times. They are not varnished yet, which means they are still prone to damage etc.

Here are some of my paintings that I varnished today:

Most of them are still-life paintings, mainly because that's the curriculum that I took in NAFA (our teacher would take some of his hidden treasures and arrange them for us---thus it's a challenge to get the same arrangement week after week). Honestly I don't really enjoy doing still-life painting as it's too meticulous. See, for example, the batik table cloth from the one in the middle. I'll talk about some of them...

Among my still-life pieces, I think I like this one best. Better still, it's not the most difficult among others (or may be that's why...). During my course in NAFA, my first non-still-life painting is The Seagulls, which, sadly, was a bit damaged when I checked today (the fruit of my procrastination to varnish it). I'll need to do a bit touch up, hopefully I still have a knack with oils.

I found a nice picture of three Buddha statues from here, so I decided to paint a part of it. So, ta daaaa, you see the outcome. Somehow this painting managed to impress my teacher, ha!

Somebody says this "Lonely Woman" picture is my best. The picture is from a painting book by Helen Van Wyk. Different from others, this is my only painting done during my holiday in Jakarta in June 2006. In other words, it was done under the scrutiny of my parents =).

My late dad was sitting behind me and my mom was (as usual) running around the house doing anything she decided to have her hands on. While my dad calmly gave me feedbacks along the way, my mom could shout "That's ugly! Lighten the color!" while dashing to the kitchen. As it is a woman picture, I trusted my dad's judgment more, ha! I forgot how long did I take to finish this, but I am pretty sure most of the time was spent dealing with my mom's harsh comments and scrutiny.

PS: If you think my paintings look rather nice on this page, don't be deceived too soon! They may look different when you zoom in =)

PS2: All paintings are copyrighted, please do not use them for any purposes without permission.