The Acne Prone Wife

Fruits for Granted

2012-01-29T15:29:00.010+07:00

It is such a cliche to say don't take anything for granted, be grateful instead, bla bla bla. The fact is that we hear sayings so many times a day (blame Blackberry Broadcast Message for that) they feel so lame and worn out.

I hate cliches. And I take things for granted. But a recent stroll to the supermarket changed me. A bit ;)

These pictures (all prices are approximate) show how fruits that I got so easily (and cheaply!) in Indonesia cost an enormous amount of Dirham that I don't want to spend.

Papaya. IDR 67,500 per kg.
In Indonesia: IDR 3,000 per kg.

Coconut. IDR 20,000 per piece.
In Indonesia: IDR 5,000 per piece.

Rambutan. IDR 42,500 per pack.
In Indonesia: IDR 10,000 per kg (less for that pack!)

Durian. IDR 90,000 per kg.
In Indonesia: IDR 20,000 per kg.

Crazy, eh? They say that all fruits here are imported. But look at the prices! Fruits from Southeast Asia are so exotic and expensive here in the desert.

No longer will I take fruits for granted when I go back to Indonesia! I will eat all the papayas I can lay my hands on!

And now is the moment for some funny pictures:

Indoinisa.

Pineapple Baby. Uber cute.

Christmas

2011-12-27T22:14:00.003+07:00

I just want to share my Christmas service.

Christmas at United Christian Church of Dubai (UCCD).

No decoration at all.

And the sermon went something like this:

Christmas is to remind us of the deeply disturbing, the ugly: our sins.
No one deserves Christmas.
If we realize we are sinners, then indeed, merry is the news of Christmas. The one who we should be saved from is the one who saves us: Christ.

My effort to hold my tears almost would not let me sing "Amazing Grace" after the sermon. Why can't Christmas be celebrated like this every year, in the whole world?

Lord, have mercy on us. Kyrie, Eleison.
Christ, have mercy on us. Christe, Eleison.

My HG Facial Wash

2011-12-14T18:00:00.007+07:00

Because this is a blog belongs to an acne prone wife, I think it's about time I talk about acne :)

I had to say goodbye to clear skin since the last year of senior high school. My acne started to run havoc on my face since I was around 17. Since then, I have tried to get rid of those bumps by getting drugstore products, seeing the doctor, going to skin clinic, etc. They sometimes got better, they sometimes got worse. But I would consider my acne mild. It's nothing a little powder cannot cover ;)

Anyway, in these last couple of years, I have found an HG (holy grail) facial wash that has kept my acne at bay. May I present: Himalaya Herbals Neem & Turmeric Soap.

Image is from the website

Gently cleanses. Keeps skin soft & smooth.
Fortified with Azadirachta indica (Neem) and Curcuma longa (Turmeric) that remove problem causing bacteria and protect your skin keeping it refreshed and healthy.

It is not specifically designed for facial wash, but when I first bought it in Singapore, I did not realize that. I used up a bar of it last year and it worked well to control excess oil and acne on my face. However, because I used it with other products for acne, I thought this soap bar was not the cause my acne cleared up.

Besides, Himalaya Herbals Neem & Turmeric Soap is not sold in Indonesia (Himalaya Herbals are sold in Indonesia, but not this product). After my first soap bar was used up, I did ask a friend to buy 2 more bars in Singapore, but then I stored them and completely forgot about them.

A couple of months later my sister used this soap bar and commented how it cleared up her skin. I got curious and started to use it again. And hey, it did clear up my skin. My husband jumped in the bandwagon and he liked it, too, to control oil and acne on his skin.

Pros:

controls excess oil
keeps acne at bay
leaves skin feel really fresh and clean
smells herbal -- nice

Cons:

can sometimes leave skin feeling dry and squeaky

Luckily, it is very easy now to find Himalaya Herbals products in Dubai. My other facial washes (from a skin clinic, La Roche Posay, Tamagohada, Lush) are now sitting lonely in my shower. I still use them, though, sometimes, when my face feels really dry.

I still now have some acne now and then, here and there, but I have to say it is so much better now that I religiously use Himalaya Herbal Neem and Turmeric Soap.

Next time I'll share about my other HG product for blackheads (and possibly acne): my beloved Paula's Choice 2% Beta Hydroxy Acid (BHA) Gel!

Retirement Fund

2011-12-14T17:17:00.014+07:00

I know that in Money Talks I said I wanted to talk about Emergency Fund first. But after thinking it through, I think I'm comfortable with first talking about Retirement Fund.

Note: This post will talk about money in IDR currency.

Everyone plans to retire someday, right? To be able to enjoy your senior years without struggling about work and money anymore. Now, let's do some math with the help of http://tujuanloapa.qmfinancial.com

Please click it for bigger image.

So if I am now 28 years old, and I want to retire working at 55 years old, and I expect to live until 80 years old, that means I have 25 years of enjoying my retirement life. The problem is I will still have expenses, right? And because I will have retired, I will no longer have income.

25 years of having to spend for expenses without income. Oh no.

Perhaps you will say that it will be easy because by then we will already have saving. So now, let's calculate how much we need for that 25 years of my retirement life, still using the help of http://tujuanloapa.qmfinancial.com

Please click it for bigger image.

My expense is now around 4 millions a month (husband and wife living a simple life), and it will be around 52 millions in my retirement years (because of inflation). I will need 12 billion (12,000,000,000) to enjoy a simple life.

Gosh.

But I still have 28 years to accumulate my saving, right? Let's see. Twelve billion in 28 years, it means I have to save around 35 million a month.

Haha. Mission impossible.

So, what to do? If you are like me, dreaded by this truth, I urge you to start reading blogs and following twitters of good financial planners.

From months of reading and researching (which I'm still doing now), I am now investing only 500,000 a month in mutual funds (reksadana) and precious metals, crossing my fingers that they will grow at least 15-20% a year. A worse scenario would be that it will not grow that well, or if they will grow downward. (That's where we need Emergency Fund, baby! I will talk about that in another post).

But the worst scenario would be if I don't invest because I know I will not have enough to enjoy my retirement years, and I will have to burden my children.

You can count how much money you should invest per month, according to your retirement needs and the growth expectation in www.portalreksadana.com. You should login first and bla bla bla, but I know you will go through all the hassles if you care about yourself. And I believe you can browse and find the growth expectation percentage of precious metals, mutual funds, stocks and bonds, etc. yourself ;)

And remember: the earlier you start, the better!

Customer Service WHAT?

2011-12-14T16:30:00.005+07:00

Have you ever been disappointed by how a company/store serves customers? In the past I had some complaints about this and that, here and there. Especially in Dubai, everyone seems to have a bad temper. Store keepers are usually very snappy and rarely say thank you. I had disappointments, but never bitterness, until yesterday.

Yesterday I went to a branch of HSBC in Deira, Dubai to cash my hard-earned-first-ever check (from my first freelance job - I will talk more about that in another post).

That's the building. But I grabbed the image from here.

I walked in the big building, confused which counter to go, then asked the receptionist. The beautiful receptionist did not so much as look at me while answering my question with mumbled words. I grasped only a part of what she said, and decided to look for the counter myself.

I found the counter, got a queuing ticket. A man behind a counter was available and he called me. I showed him my check, and he mumbled something, pointing at the back of the check. I asked what, and he looked at me with that are-you-stupid-or-what look. And so on, and so on. And oh, he did all that while talking to his colleague, hardly paying any attention to me, his customer.

It was quick actually, and finally he kinda slammed my money at the counter, and said "Kalas, kalas" (which means finish), waving his hand to kinda shoo me away. I was so flabbergasted by how he treated me that I forgot to count the money (but it's correct, anyway).

Maybe it's just the culture here, but I could not help feeling hatred and bitterness. Luckily it's only for a while. The husband calmed me down and said that I shouldn't take it seriously.

No wonder Indonesian people are well known as being friendly. We ARE friendly, dear fellow Indonesians :)

And I have made a promise in my heart, that I shall always evaluate how I treat people. I shall not look down on other people, whoever they are.

Note: In fact, if you google "Dubai bad customer service" you will find lots of other instances.

To cheer things up, here is how Mr. Bean handles bad customer service :D

Five Hours in A Foreign Country

2011-11-21T16:38:00.011+07:00

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 themselves to queue. Us, the ladies, waited in the shade. Not that it wasn't frustrating.

Funny thing, actually, that we did not have to show our faces to the immigration officer. The officer just stamped all the passports given to him.

Anyway, the location we headed in Oman was called Mussandam. It is famous for its sea tourism. Basically what we can do in Mussandam is taking a boat trip for the whole day where we can enjoy the scenery, do some fishing, snorkeling, and wild dolphin sight seeing.

We reached the place after one hour drive through this quite breath taking scenery:

Too bad we reached the tourism site at 2 pm, meaning that we could not take the whole-day tour (which started at 9.30 am haha). So we took a half-day tour.

The Dhow boat which we used for the tour.

The inside of the boat. That's me with the lovely couple who took us for the trip.

The scenery we enjoyed.

The only wild dolphin I managed to take a picture of.
There were only 8-10 dolphins that day, but they were friendly and they chased the Dhow boat.

The husband. Haha.

After three hours, the trip ended and we have to say goodbye to Mussandam. It took us 1 hour to drive back to the Oman border, and luckily there was no queue at the evening :)

Well, that's my five hours in a foreign country. The driving and the queuing were longer than the being in Oman itself. And although Mussandam is quite highly praised as a beautiful getaway for UAE people, I'll have to say that my home country, Indonesia, offers way much more beautiful places!

Money Talks

2011-11-13T16:29:00.007+07:00

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's talk about number 1 first in this post: Protection/Insurance according to my family's goals. After quite a long research, we decided that we would have:

Life insurance for the bread winner (20 year term life)
We will have term life insurance instead of whole life insurance. It needs a lengthy explanation to differentiate them, so Google them if you want to know more. Or maybe someday I will post about them
Health insurance for both of us, husband and wife
According to our family's goals, we will have a very affordable health insurance when we go back to Indonesia. We will choose the cheapest hospital room available because we realize we don't need a fancy room and because it's what we can afford now.

The importance of having protection/insurance in a Financial Plan is because protection can ensure the implementation of the plan continues to run when undesirable things happen (such as illness, death or an accident).

Don't we all wish money is like in Monopoly game?
Image is from here

One option that a lot of insurance agents in Indonesia offer when we need to invest, to have life insurance, and to have health insurance is: Unit Link (a hybrid of investment and protection). However, after reading those financial planners' blogs and after realizing how my own Unit Link investment does not grow much after 5 years, I decided to separate between investment and protection.

On the subject of why Unit Link is not recommended by my goals, you can read (they are all in Indonesian):

Note: I never mean to give difficulty to any insurance agents selling Unit Link. Unit Link just does not suit my goals :)

In the next post I'll discuss about Emergency Fund.

Homesick

2011-11-12T13:09:00.003+07:00

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 people are looked down on here.

And I started to miss my hometown, where everything is comfortable, where I know every nook and corner. I miss my comfort zone.

I got homesick.

Image is from here, but the blog says it is credited to Google. Oh, well.

It started to be difficult to eat, to sleep, and even to smile. And it started be easy to get irritated, to cry, and to be angry.

I thought the feeling gonna last forever. But everyone told me it's gonna past soon. It's called adaptation. And thank God they were right. After few weeks of torturing homesickness, I actually got over it. I started to adapt.

Some tips I get from friends to cure homesickness (and they work! Thank you guys!):

from @me_xtine at twitter: get busy!
from @omania at twitter: skype and talk with family at home!

Now I am still jobless. But I start to feel comfortable in this foreign land, which is starting to plunge into its windy and much cooler winter.

At the end of Dubai's 2011 summer, I learned how it felt to be homesick :)

The facade of my apartment building, by the way.

My (Early) Impression of Dubai

2011-10-02T19:13:00.010+07:00

It's tricky to define Dubai, and my definition might be too early because I've just been here for a month and a couple of days.

However, for sure, although Dubai is in Arabian peninsula, you will be disappointed if you look for Arabia world here. For one thing, 85% of the people here are expatriates (and most of them are India and Pakistani). Another thing, Dubai is like a showcase of its country UAE to display how modern and rich the country is.

In my humble opinion, the showcase is somewhat tacky and lots of times over the top.

"Literally" over the top, right? :D

You can browse the Internet and read the history of Dubai, but to make the story short, it was in around 1970 that Dubai started to build fast and tall. So it is like in the Arabian 1001 nights. This modern city was built "magically" overnight . No wonder not much ancient culture can be found here. But if you insist, you can still see such things (click for bigger picture):

Left: Traditional Dubai Water Taxi to travel between Deira and Bur Dubai.

Right: Traditional souk (market) in Deira.

I've tried the water taxi and I've been to the traditional souk. Going there in summer was a mistake. I got nothing but headache. Nothing Arabia, though, simply because everyone there was either an Indian or a Pakistani :D

If you google Dubai images you might get pictures of modern clean crisp city. However, for me, there is something wrong about the air. Perhaps because Dubai is a desert, the air is never clear. It is always somewhat dusty. At least in the summer. I might want to change my opinion when it's winter.

Do you see what I mean?
(click for bigger picture)

Dubai is a weird attractive city. I would say it is a seriously modern and rich place for the wealthiest people clashed with a dusty and hard but rewarding life for immigrants who scrape for a little bit of fortune. I'm still trying to find my place here, to see if I can love this city like other people do.

Trying to find some authentic Arab culture here? Err, try some place else.

Looking for a multinational city with skyscrapers, malls with every major fashion brand in the world? Here is the place ;)

What do you want to know in the next posts? The weather? The people? More big malls? The tourism sites? The transportation? Or maybe the life of labors here? Let me know *wink*

Note: All images are from Wikipedia.

Eat What You Cook

2011-09-13T18:41:00.004+07:00

The beauty of just-married couples is how they do everything together. They sleep together, they shop together, they solve problem together, they laugh together, they pray together, they cry together, they cook together.

And they eat together.

And we realized that our cooking is crap.

Yuck.
Image is from here.

I shared about this with a best friend back in the home country, and he was exceptionally sympathetic.

Best friend: Poor you. What are you craving now? I'll take pictures of it.
Me: Ha. Ha. Very funny.

Now is 4 pm. And I have to think of something to cook for dinner. *sigh*

Lesson learned: Learn to cook and actually do cook when you're still in your mom's house!

How One-Way Ticket Works for Me

2011-09-07T14:38:00.009+07:00

I don't know if this rule is worldwide or only in Indonesia, but to travel abroad you have to have return ticket. I believe it is to avoid people to work illegally abroad and not coming back to their home country.

No country would want this to happen.
Image is from here.

Anyway, when I wanted to leave for Dubai, UAE to be with the husband who's working there, I called several travel agents to purchase a one-way ticket because I needed not a return ticket (and of course to save some money :D). But those travel agents insisted that they could not sell a one-way ticket. It's against the rule, they said, although I had tried to explain that I would have some kind of a visa.

So the husband decided to make a residence visa sponsored by the husband (not by the company) and here is the process:

Prepare a copy of the marriage certificate (translated into English by a certified and sworn translator, legalized by Kementerian Hukum dan HAM RI, Kementerian Luar Negeri RI, and Embassy of UAE in Jakarta). The translation costs IDR 50,000 and the legalization costs IDR 600,000.
After the legalization, the certificate has to be sent to the UAE.
The certificate has to be stamped by the Ministry of Foreign Affair in the UAE. It costs AED 150.
Bring the certificate to be retyped by a document typing service. It costs AED 40.
Prepare the sponsor's working contract to be stamped by the immigration office. It costs AED 130.
Bring the stamped certificate and a copy of it, the retyped document, along with the husband's stamped working contract and a copy of it, copies of the passports, a copy of the husband's working visa, and a photograph of the wife to the immigration office in the UAE.
Submit all the documents to the immigration, wait for an hour, and the residence visa sponsored by husband is done ;) It costs AED 200 something.
Bring the visa to the airport EXACTLY one day before the spouse comes. It costs AED 40.

Total cost is about IDR 650,000 plus AED 560.

By the way, the salary of the sponsor should be at least AED4,000 to be able to make a residence visa for the spouse.

So we bought a one-way ticket online (check www.garuda-indonesia.com, www.bruneiair.com, or www.srilankan.lk for good deals from Indonesia to UAE). With a copy of the scanned residence visa, I went through this and that check-in flight and immigration counters and all went well. Hurray!

I hope this post will help anyone who is in a similar situation with me because I browsed and browsed but could not find anything that would assure me that I would be able to pass through immigration with no return ticket.

Oh well, after all the excitement and happiness, now here I am, stranded in this desert country :| Next post will be about homesickness.

Pokoknya Sambel Goreng ala Mama

2011-08-29T15:08:00.002+07:00

Bahan + bumbu:

Kerang / udang / ayam / lauk apa aja deh
Bawang putih
Bawang merah
Lombok besar
Daun jeruk
Garam, gula
Kecap manis

Cara masak:

Campur lauk dengan garam dan gula
Gongsong bawang putih dan bawang merah
Tambahkan lombok, daun jeruk, dan lauknya
Ketika air sudah sat, tambahkan kecap manis
Masak sebentar, matang deh

Looks easy peasy!

*Resep diajarkan oleh Mama kepada anaknya si Acne Prone Wife yang sedang merantau dan lebih sering dimasakin suami ini

Resep Sayur Kuah ala Suci

2011-08-25T15:05:00.003+07:00

Bahan:

Kaldu (ayam/daging)
Potongan tahu halus
Wortel
Kocokan telur
Sawi / Pochai

Bumbu:

Merica, garam, gula
1/2 sdt minyak wijen
Tumisan bawang putih (cincang) dan daun prei (potong tipis)

Cara masak:

Didihkan kaldu
Bumbui dengan merica, garam, gula
Masukkan potongan tahu halus, wortel, kocokan telur
Terakhir masukkan potongan sawi/pochai
Tambahkan minyak wijen, tumisan bawang putih & daun prei
Setelah mendidih langsung angkat supaya sayur tidak layu

Selamat mencoba!

*Resep diberikan oleh Suci kepada sepupunya si Acne Prone Wife yang sedang merantau ini

Eleven Hours in Brunei

2011-08-22T11:49:00.013+07:00

Between my flight from Surabaya to Dubai, I had an eleven-hour-layover in Bandar Sri Begawan, Brunei. It wasn't a lot of time but I managed to snap these few random things (click for bigger pictures):

How streets and building look in Bandar Sri Begawan

A traditional market by the river.
We can ride on the boat, but the smell of the river was too much.

The hotel where I stayed for a couple of hours.
I like the logo.

For lunch I went to a shabby food court next to the hotel.
The sign made me pay attention to where I stepped.

If you're not an Indonesian, you might not find this picture amusing.
Indome - ayam - telur
Indome - cornbeef
Indome - mata lembu
Indome - skramble

Bandar Sri Begawan airport.
Everyone in Gate 5 wanted to go to London. It seemed that I'm the only one heading to Dubai.

Interesting things I found about Brunei:

The cars are very polite. They always stop when people want to cross the street. (Unlike in Surabaya/Indonesia)
There are only 400,000 people living in Brunei.
The students had holidays in March (2 weeks), June (2 weeks), September (2 weeks or a month, I cannot remember), December (a month), and during Ramadan. Oh wow.
The currencies used there are Brunei Dollar (BND) and Singapore Dollar (SGD) but they don't accept the gold coins of SGD for a reason nobody seems to know.

Goodbye for now, dear Brunei!

Menuju Suami

2011-08-22T09:35:00.003+07:00

Today I feel like writing in Indonesian. So, here it is.

Akhirnya saya menyusul suami juga setelah enam bulan menjalani long-distance-marriage, setelah setahun lebih sebelumnya menjalani long-distance-pacaran.

Jujur, saya merasa seperti Siti Nurbaya yang dikawinkan melalui perjodohan (untungnya tanpa paksa). Semacam akan menemui orang baru yang cuma saya kenal lewat chatting. Tapi semoga ini bisa bikin banyak sparks seperti orang baru pacaran yang lagi hot-hotnya gitu ya.

Anyway, ini bukan kali pertama saya ke luar negeri, tapi jujur dodolnya mirip orang yang belum pernah naik pesawat. Sepertinya ini dikarenakan setiap kali bepergian saya tidak pernah sendiri. Dan itu membuat saya "seperti kerbau dicocok hidung," ngikut aja tanpa ngerti.

Dimulai dari kelebihan beban, membongkar koper di hadapan petugas demi mengeluarkan 3kg dan gawatnya lingerie macan (haummm) pemberian teman kok paling atas *plak*. Lalu salah jalan ke sana sini (ini sih biasa buat saya).

Yang agak memalukan sewaktu masuk pesawat, di tempat duduk paling depan ada cewek yang manissss sekali, saya sampai terpesona dan tidak memperhatikan nomer tempat duduk. Lagian nomer tempat duduk saya 26 jadi saya kira jauh di belakang. Eh sampai di tengah-tengah, flight attendant melihat tiket saya dan memberitahu nomer 26 itu tempatnya di paling depan.

Oops.

Untungnya sebelum saya berbuat lebih bodoh lagi dengan berusaha melawan arus jalan orang-orang dengan koper saya, si flight attendant menolong dengan menaikkan koper saya ke tempat di atas nomer... err... 42. Agak jauh ya.

Singkat cerita saya pun duduk di sebelah cewek yang manissss sekali tadi itu. Penerbangan saya pun indah. Marmut Merah Jambu tulisan Raditya Dika di tangan, cewek manissss di sebelah. Tapi sebagian besar waktu di pesawat saya ketiduran sih :|

Salam,
Acne Prone Wife
lagi bengong di hotel transit di Brunei
sebentar lagi mau foto-foto di pasar depan hotel

Not the royal wedding

2011-04-29T16:48:00.005+07:00

Because today is the wedding of the century, the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate, I thought I would write something about wedding. Not the royal wedding, though. This is the story of my very own wedding.

My wedding was a multicultural wedding, not because the bride and the groom were of different culture, but because Chinese Indonesians in Indonesia are usually bewildered among cultures. But that what makes it interesting, doesn't it?

I started the long ceremony list by holding "Widodaren" at my home a couple of days before the wedding. From the name, you know that it's a Javanese tradition. Please don't ask me what it means; I don't know. What my family did was just having dinner together at my home. Why did I do it when I don't know the meaning? Because one of my aunts INSISTED that it should be held.

The wedding day itself was a confusion between Christian, Chinese, and Western weddings. The bride's dress and the groom's suit were definitely of Western culture, for instance.

On the other hand, Chinese cultures dominated little bits here and there: red umbrella for the groom, yellow rice thrown at the groom, tea ceremony to honor the elders, and of course the long-awaited big Chinese food dinner for everyone except the bride and the groom (we had no time to eat!).

The Christian cultures were mostly apparent at the church, although I didn't cover my face with veil (because I forgot to, haha, oh and I forgot my bouquet, too) and nobody seemed to realize.

The need to squeeze in a lot of cultures in one wedding day results in consequently a very long wedding. We started the first ceremony at 8 am, and finished the wedding reception at 10 pm. I had warned my bridesmaid, who was an American, that it was going to be different from weddings in the US, and at the end of the day she still couldn't believe how all of us managed that long day.

We also had some cultural "clashes":
1. We released pigeons after the church ceremony, which was described by the groom's mother as "usually done when someone is dead."
2. The bridal service provided a white bridesmaid's gown, which was described by the bridesmaid as "would not be done in the US. Nobody wears white except the bride!"

The Jamaican Rastafarian Groom

Oh, and the groom decided to throw in Jamaican culture, too. His Rastafarian hair managed to steal the attention from the supposedly-where-every-eye-should-look-at bride.

It might not be a royal wedding, but I find that my wedding was a time to ponder upon cultures. It left me rethinking our identity. Who are we in terms of ethnicity? Now I leave this question to you readers.

And here is my favorite picture from the wedding:

The Bride, the Groom, and the Becak

Debt Diet

2011-01-29T20:27:00.000+07:00

Okay, who's got debt? Raise your hand! *raising mine*

Because in two weeks I'm gonna be a wife, I know I cannot be a wife bringing all my credit card debt with me. What a burden I'll be for the Husband.

image is from here

So I browsed around and found myself this couple of things to help me pay my debt:

The obvious things:

Stop shopping until the next decade for the things (read: clothes, accessories, bags) that I literally already have for until the next decade
Sell my unused things (you know, those bags because IRL we only need one bag to live, right?)

The not so obvious things:

Read http://qmfinancial.com, starting doing what she said by noting down my expenses this February
Use the help of http://www.ngaturduit.com/ to maintain my finance life in shape

Random Tips:

Start investing/saving (am still trying to figure out the difference)
Reksadana (will have to read a lot, like A LOT, about it)
Reksadana for dummies: http://mommiesdaily.com/2010/06/28/investasi-reksadana-untuk-pemula/
Stop all paypal and credit card fun. Accept the fact that you are broke, Wife.
The risk of NOT investing is greater than the risk of investing
Don't spend the money you don't have

By the grace of the Lord, I shall be able to escape the debt. Any other tips, dear readers?

Till debt do us part,
Acne Prone Wife

Welcome!

2011-01-28T14:56:00.000+07:00

Hi, everyone! Welcome to this blog. I am actually not a wife yet. I will be in two weeks. Gasp!

I am now busy preparing for the wedding day while I am still struggling to write my thesis to finish a graduate program. Consequently, I am happy but super cranky, like this cat.

image is from here

Anyway, in this blog you will find posts about what I am interested in. Right now I am selfish enough to be kinda interested in my own wedding. I am also interested in skincare, as I am acne prone (as reflected in the title of this blog) and I am trying hard to present a flawless face on my wedding day and marriage days.

See you soon,
Acne Prone Wife