The Acne Prone Wife

So the husband got quite a long weekend a couple of weeks ago because of a national holiday, so we decided we were going somewhere out of town. We googled and found out that Oman is a neighboring country that can be reached with land transportation. And what a pleasant surprise it was when a friend invited to go with his family after called him to ask about visa to Oman. So the somewhat winding journey began :) The view when we were near the border We left from Dubai to Oman border at 8 am, and reached Dubai-Oman border at 10 am. The process at the Dubai immigration was fast although somewhat confusing. There were no signs of which counter to go first. Things got worse when we hit Oman immigration. There were NO building to queue to get our passports stamped. We were to queue under the dessert sun. Unbelievable. See? And the immigration officer worked quite slow. It took us three hours to clear the immigration, from 10 am until 1 pm! Luckily the gentlemen of our group sacrificed themse

For some time I've been reading some blogs from (Indonesian) independent financial planners, and I realized that I couldn't have been less wiser in money matters. I have posted in January about how I wanted to do debt diet . Fortunately, this one I managed. I have trimmed down my debt and I can proudly say that I am now free of debt. But I have almost no saving. According to those financial planners' blogs I read (they are on the list of My Daily Reading on the right side of this blog, by the way), the next things I should prepare are: Protection (Insurance) Emergency Fund Education Fund (for my future children) Retirement Fund Now, how much we should prepare for those funds, and what financial products we should buy, they all depend on each of our goals, so what works for me might not work for everybody else. Note: Now, excuse my English terms in all this financial matters :D The blogs I read are in Indonesian, and I am not familiar with finance terms in English :D Let'

Homesick was one of the things I could not understand, simply because I never felt homesick. Maybe because I was never away from home for a long time. However, moving to another country proves to be a whole new experience for me to learn to be homesick. I moved from Indonesia to Dubai in August 2011. The first weeks were awesome. The husband took me to places for sightseeing; I learned to manage our little studio apartment. Basically, meeting the husband after month apart felt good. After that, I started to look for jobs. And my first interview. We took a couple of buses and had to walk a couple of miles to the interview place. The sun was strikingly hot. We got lost and had to take a taxi there. The interviewee was a big Western guy (after I googled I found out he was Australian), and he was intimidating. And I was intimidated. We got home, and I started to worry. Can I survive in this place? This place is so foreign. Come to think of it, the people are not friendly. Moreover, Asian p