Rouge Rosette

Today marks the day I first saw a cat (or kitten) that got run over by a vehicle with my own eyes. Sometimes, I would see dead cats on the road but did not see it happening.

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Today, I saw a small kitten on the road trying to cross the street. I braked my car, and usually adult cats would have ran across the street immediately, but this kitten was confused and stayed in place. I stopped my car for a few seconds, because the kitten would not move-- got honked from cars/motorcycles behind me but who cares-- the kitten was probably shocked and scared.


A couple of seconds later, as it was running across the street in panic, BAM! A motorcycle ran over it. The motorcycle driver was with his female friend, and his female friend looked like she was saying something like "omg why did you run over the kitten?!?" Or "omg the kitten omg omg", and her hands was on the sides of her face, jittery and looking panicked. She did not look back at the kitten but even from the back her gestures were obvious that she was not okay with what her friend did. The motorcycle rider and his friend continued their journey to wherever it may be, and when I looked at my rear view mirror, the kitten was writhing in pain. It was still alive then...

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Because there are still many cars/motorcycles waiting in line behind me, and I also got homework to do, I did not stop my car, I also continued my journey to my home.

This event got me contemplating when I was waiting for the red light. And then I thought of many things, such as how the kitten might be living miserably because it was separated from its parents, and then life was taken away from it in just a flash, and what would have happened if I had stopped for a while to save the kitten.


I imagined myself in the kitten's position. To be honest, I really can't imagine the pain of living without a mother; even thinking about it makes me cry, because it makes me think of the future when I get older, and so will my parents... *sob*

The kitten was confused and got lost in the middle of the road. It was actually in a really dangerous part of the road. I don't know how the kitten got there, but it was in the middle of a wide road and it was far from the pedestrian walkway. And unfortunately, in that road where the kitten was in, there's always a lot of cars and motorcycles passing by.

---Buat orang Jakarta, lokasi tempat gue melihat kejadian ini adalah sebelum flyover Antasari, saat jalannya dibagi 2 menjadi 1 ke kiri ke arah Prapanca, 2 lurus masuk flyover Antasari. Gue dari arah jalan Sisingamangaraja, yang dari sekretariat Asean belok kiri, terus belok kanan masuk jalur yang di tengah, lalu di lampu merah yang lurus ke Jalan Truno Joyo, gue belok kanan. Si kucing muncul di jalan yang dari underpass mau ke arah Prapanca.

My mind continued to wander... how the kitten must have felt; alone and lost, without its mother, and then having your body crushed by a vehicle. That must have been extreme pain.

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However... I had prioritized my homework, which is also my final project, due today before midnight, over the writhing kitten in the middle of the road. If I had stopped for a while to save the kitten, I would have gone to a veterinarian, paid the costs for the kitten, the kitten would be safe for now.

But then, going to the vet may take time, and then I might not have enough time to finish my essay, and most likely it will cause me to fail the subject, which will make my GPA drop ungracefully, and lose 3 million rupiahs (the cost for the credits of the subject) over a kitten. How will I explain to my lecturer about giving me time extension over saving a kitten...? While it is also possible that going to the vet may not take very much time, there's still the risk.

Thinking over this in a rational manner, what I did was certainly directly beneficial to me. I did not want to risk failing the subject just because of a kitten. It was directly beneficial because I will not spend extra money on veterinarian, I will not spend extra time saving the kitten, it's definite and obvious.

If I had saved the kitten, I would be proud of myself, and call it one of my personal accomplishments for having saved a stray kitten when it got run over by a motorcycle. It will not benefit me materialistically, but it will benefit me spiritually. I can safely say, that the feeling of being able to help someone (or something) and make a difference, is one of the best feelings in the world.

Almost everything harder in life does not benefit you straight away and materialistically, but gives you that personal spiritual enlightenment, which is good. Which was easier, saving the cat or just drive away pretending it never happened?

._.)

Honestly saying, I actually did have the want, the intention to save the kitten, but I decided it was not my first priority. I am a bit disappointed in myself for not saving the kitten when I had the chance to, and I do kind of regret I did not save the cat, but my will for playing it safe was greater.

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Dear kitten, I apologize for not saving you, but I sincerely hope someone out there will save you, and if unfortunately, you eventually died of your wounds, I hope you rest in peace.

And I hope, the next time I see something like this on the road, I am not in a rush.

(No pictures, I'm sorry. I was driving and I wouldn't stop my car just to take a picture of it lol)

Hello everyone!

Today's topic is the famous gigantic fried chicken which is famous in Taiwan. Its name is 雞排 (pinyin: ji1 pai2). It is my favorite street snack in Taiwan, and one of the major cause I gained a lot of weight during my stay there! xD

Me myself eating 2-Peck's tasty fried chicken!

My favorite ji pai is from 2-Peck! (Chinese: 2-派克, or just 派克)



Especially with dried plum flavor! (梅子味)

Here you can see the magnificent 2-Peck fried chickens. The above picture was the one I bought near my host family's house in the Yongkang Da Wan district, while the below picture was the one I bought in a 2-Peck store in Kaohsiung.

Considering I only eat dried plum flavored ji pai, this blog post will be all about it. No other flavors, I'm sorry! :')

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Plum? Why plum?

Rather than imagining this plum, imagine dried plums. Chinese ones.




Yes, the ones like this. It's grounded into powder and then can be added as seasoning. In Indonesia, these dried plums are usually called kiamboy.

There are two kinds of dried plum powder: white and red. According to my host mother, usually Taiwanese people prefer the white dried plum powder to be added as a condiment, but not everyone likes its flavor. Take my host family for example, they do not like the taste of dried plum. I, on the other hand, LOVE it. From my above fried chicken photos, you can see that the above fried chicken has a reddish hint to it, but here's a clearer picture.


See the orangey-red colored seasoning on the chicken? That's it :)

Below is another picture of fried chicken, which is the Kaohsiung-bought ji pai ;)


This fried chicken with dried plum flavor incorporates both kinds of dried plum seasonings: white and red. However, I think the Kaohsiung ji pai uses more white dried plum powder than red.



Before I knew of this flavor, I stuck with original or spicy flavors, and then, on one fateful day, I tried my friend's fried chicken (with plum flavor) and that's how I fell in love with it. Plum tastes sour, very sour when you only try the powder, but when added to fried food, they taste very good! There's sweet, sour, and bits of savory in it.

I live in Indonesia, Jakarta, where Taiwanese-inspired snack stands are quite scarce until very recently. Having tasted Taiwan's fried chicken firsthand, my taste buds learned the high standards before having tasted the lesser tasty ones. So when Shihlin opened in Jakarta and I tried their fried chicken, I was disappointed for the lack of Taiwanese fried chicken taste!

They played safe, they only had original, spicy (medium to very spicy), or barbecue. My favorite flavor, plum, was reserved solely for the sweet potato fries/balls I forgot. I. was. not. happy.

I bought their fried chicken occasionally despite not being fully satisfied; in my opinion, it is not as Taiwanese as it claims to be.

I do not have the pictures of Shihlin's fried chicken, but they have more flour than meat compared to this:



JJJJUUUIIICCCYY!  The best part of the chicken, the boneless meat! Other part of the chicken, which is bony, still tastes good, but nothing tastes better than eating chicken with no bones. (Pictures are unedited, straight from my iPhone so I'm sorry if it's too yellow because of the lamp lighting)

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In Jakarta, a Taiwanese snack/drink shop has recently opened. Its name is A Gantea.


To be honest, for almost every franchise/snack stall that appears in Jakarta such as Chatime and A Gantea, is something I have never seen before in Taiwan. Or maybe that's because I lived in Tainan and not Taipei. However, one yinliao(drink) shop, COMEBUY, is something I saw in Tainan. The one I saw was located near the Tainan Railway station, near the zebra cross.

Anyways, A Gantea has made my dream come true. My dream of tasting an authentic Taiwanese fried chicken taste recreated in Indonesia!

Before I go further, this blog post is not sponsored at all. This is all an analysis based on personal experience and preferences.

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Plum is not a safe flavor. At least in Indonesia.

The last time I bought a fried chicken at A Gantea, I ordered a plum-flavored fried chicken. The lady told me beforehand, "But it's sweet" (Tapi ini manis, mbak), I said "Yes, it's okay" (Iya nggak papa kok mbak)

There was a promotion at that time, where you get a drink + chicken for the price of one fried chicken ( IDR 35,000 / NTD 87,09). I got the drink first, and before they cooked my fried chicken, they reconfirmed it with me, that it was sweet. They were making sure that I really ordered the plum flavor. I replied with yes, yes I DID order plum flavor.

Seeing that Shihlin only had super basic flavors for its fried chicken, and how the lady reacted to my flavor of choice, I have come to the conclusion that Indonesians dislike fried food + sweet/sour seasoning, or more simply, it is not a safe or easily marketable flavor to have.

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A few days ago, I went to buy a gigantic fried chicken again. I ordered a plum flavor, but then the lady said I can mix the flavor. So I said I wanted garlic with plum. Originally I said curry but she misheard me, and then I said, "ok garlic" because a random thought in my mind thought it wouldn't be such a bad idea.

This time, the cashier lady also made sure by asking me "But it's sweet" (Tapi ini manis, mbak). Please remember me as the Plum Fried Chicken lady. I am very sure with my decision of ordering a fried chicken with sweet seasoning.

That turned out to be the best decision ever. To mix garlic with plum.

I am posting out-of-date stuff on Wind Runner, as I was enthusiastically playing this game during my Christmas holidays; I started on 18th December, and started to get bored on the beginning of January. Now, with lectures starting again, and constant app crash on my iPad, I just don't feel like playing it for the moment, and probably for quite some time.

One of my accomplishments during that period was:

1. Got a high score of 4.1 million in Classic Mode.














2. Got 1st rank in Silver and Gold Medal Championships, and my best score to date in Championship Mode is 839,564.

Silver Medal Championship

The score I got for Gold Medal Championship

Got Brown on my second try in combining two B+5 cards!

DRAGON!

This pet is how you can get millions and millions of score. As written in the help section about Dragon pet, Dragon has a barrier which will regenerate every 30 seconds once you hit something and got protected by the barrier. When you evolve Dragon, the regeneration interval becomes only 20 seconds!

I started playing the game again after a lot of events had passed, so I asked my friend how Dragon works. I was confused as to what Dragon's description meant.

It will stay as long as you don't die. It doesn't matter if it's more than 30 seconds. If you hit something, miss a platform, or any other that causes you to die, the dragon will do this:

Disclaimer: this is not mine. It's my friend's Wind Runner, I just asked for the picture of his collection of legend pets. He is a lucky bastard. =P

I bet there are blogs out there who has lots of legends, and a complete set of super rare and rare pets (I've seen some of windrunnerextreme's posts), but here's some if you're curious!

The Four Temperaments

Anyone who made that website content. Is a genius.

Sanguine
Choleric
Melancholic
Phlegmatic

I am mostly a sanguine. And then I'm partly melancholic or phlegmatic (haven't really checked).

Reading that article made me feel like I'm invisible.... it's so me in many ways. I think everyone should be a combination of at least two; but there must be one major temperament that really describes you.

Lemme quote parts of it:

In a nutshell = Sanguine people are boisterous, bubbly, chatty, openly emotional, social extroverts.

They're social, expressive, and attention-seeking. Out of all, expressive is the most 'me'. I'm social, but I'm not a social butterfly, because I have lots of friends but then I don't know them all that well. Attention-seeking... this part is not very dominant. I'm shy. ;)

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Social

Sanguines find social interactions with faces both familiar and unfamiliar invigorating. This is how they recharge, and time alone - while sometimes desirable - can bore them quickly.

Hmm... to be honest, yes. But then what goes through my mind is: "when am I gonna meet this person again? I don't think we'll meet often after this..."

The more people they're surrounded by, the better they feel, and they're not picky about who they get to know. They enjoy having many, many friends.

This is one of the parts that are not very true about me. I'm quite picky. I don't particularly like to befriend some stranger that I see smoking. I hate cigarettes. However, when other opportunity comes for us to get acquainted with each other such as in class, I am perfectly okay.

They are talkers more than they are listeners.

.....damn.

They may move away from friends that they consider to be boring or dull.

But I usually think twice before really doing that. I often feel uneasy because doing it makes me feel guilty :/

They are bubbly, fun-loving, extroverted people-people who are always in the mood for a good time. They love wild nights out.

Yes! but I don't often go for a wild night out. But I love fun!

They make friends quickly, and they'll cheerily talk to strangers. People of the melancholic temperament might perceive a room of twenty strangers as frightening or uncomfortable, while a sanguine might see them as opportunities to meet new friends.

This... depends. Whew, I can be both.

They are not picky, and will usually like more things than they dislike. They tend to enjoy things that are trendy, popular, and so on.

I like trendy things. I don't always buy them, of course, but this really applies to me in terms of makeup! I tend to want to buy award-winning makeup products. Like more than dislike... I think? I do say I like something more often than I say I dislike something.

They enjoy social situations, and believe that everyone else would too. They're likely to convince people to come along with things like 'come on, you'll enjoy it!' or 'you don't know what you're missing!'

..... *hides*

Being friends with a Sanguine is often as simple as knowing each other's face and name.

TOO TRUE.

They aren't particularly trustworthy... as they'll be too eager to spill secrets with others, and their general flightiness can make them unreliable as they're likely to get easily distracted by other things.

Whoops! I tell my friends about my friends' embarrassing moments, but I know my limits! I have a properly working superego, I do feel guilty when I spill the beans. I feel the need to release my emotions, and most of the time, through words. This is why I write diaries. Don't immediately unfriend your sanguine friends! I'm pretty sure they know as well what can be talked about and what to not talk about :')

Oh, and I am indeed VERY easily distracted.

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Expressive

They are talkative, and speak in a friendly, energetic, playful kind of way; they're often charismatic, and when interacting with them, you can feel like you've known them all your life.

Haha! Maybe yes :P I'm very chatty, but when I'm in a small group!

They are very emotional, and their emotions can be extreme but fleeting. They are the sorts who will be screaming "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!" one day, then mere hours later, they'll be profusely apologising about it, then expecting everything to all be water under the bridge after that.

T-This................... I don't expect all the water under the bridge after that, I feel immense guilt... but... this is... too true.

They are quick to 'forgive and forget' - and expect others to do the same - because they live in the moment rather than dwelling in the past.

The reason why I can't hate people. I can't even be mad at a person for too long.

They are extreme in their emotions, and may go through stages of melodramatic misery and self-loathing as well.

Holy cow.

Sanguines can be great motivators, as they'll enthusiastically encourage others towards action, and they see things positively, optimistically, and would convince others to see things that way too.

HOWEVER, this does not mean I can do it myself. I want to see you succeed! :')

They are naturally physical with others, very 'touchy-feely', openly expressing their affection through hugs and stroking and grabbing shoulders and things like that.

I am known as a huggy person.

They could not be said to be neat and tidy. They live in the moment, which can lead to poor planning or disorganisation, messiness.

My room is hardly ever tidy. HEHE!

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Attention-seeking

They wish to fit in and be popular. Or, they'll seek to be Different in a way that will make them remarkable.

I once wished to be popular. But I am just not able to. I don't want to spend weekends partying, socializing, etc. I find it tiring.

They are dramatic, and will exaggerate to make things seem more extreme than they are.

I am! I am very well known for that ;)

They have a tendency to be vain, and to care about how they look.

Unfortunately, I only have half part of both vain and caring about how I look.....

They will show off their abilities to others in order to get praise.

Sometimes, yes.

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Quotations from others:

Wikipedia:

The sanguine temperament is fundamentally sociable and pleasure-seeking; sanguine people are impulsive and charismatic. They tend to enjoy social gatherings, making new friends and tend to be boisterous. They are usually quite creative and often have many ideas. Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic. Often, when they pursue a new hobby, they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun. They are very much people persons. They are talkative and not shy. Sanguine people are warm-hearted, lively and optimistic. They have been called "people-oriented extroverts."

I was gaping as I was reading this. Bold parts made me gape.

CHRONICALLY LATE.

Friends who know me well, will know that if we meet at 10 AM for example, I might depart from home exactly at 10 AM or 10 minutes before 10 AM although it will take me 30-40 minutes to get there. I cannot be like this when I start working.

TEND TO BE FORGETFUL.

Maybe this is because I lack sleep, but this is one of my "chronic diseases". I can go to the bathroom with some stuff in hand, thinking and thinking "Did I forget something?" while walking. And then ending up going back and forth three times from bathroom to bedroom and vice versa. Why? First, I forgot my bra, then I go back to the bathroom, then I realized I didn't bring my panties, etc etc

Often, when they pursue a new hobby, they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun.

This is like a hammer hit to the head.

I had a goal in mind. I wanted to be able to do pull-ups. I started bar training during my holidays, and then I stopped shortly after lectures had started. Why? Dozens of homework. Ok ok I know this sounds like an excuse, but I had to choose: do my homework, or go training. I can train alone actually, but I'm too tired to have leftover dedication to train. I've never been an exercise enthusiast, so changing me that drastically will be hard. Maybe this is why I was never able to be an expert in one discipline, except for drawing. Even this is still quite far from expertise. :')

Solution: DO IT AT HOME! (no excuses)

However, when it's not your passion, it's really kind of hard. I was glad doing the training though! I liked dips because I wasn't able to do pull-ups yet, but really, going there is such a hassle FOR ME. I have to overcome this laziness in order to excel.

THEY ARE TALKATIVE.

Yes, but I'm shy sometimes.

WARM-HEARTED, LIVELY, AND OPTIMISTIC.

I'm not always optimistic, but I try to be. I have a friend who is very optimistic, and I am nothing compared to that!

THEY HAVE BEEN CALLED "PEOPLE-ORIENTED EXTROVERTS"

I don't know what else to say. I can be an introvert or an extrovert depending on the person I am interacting with.

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That's all! You can see for yourself which one fits your personality the best!

Other websites: Refined Perspectives

I haven't posted LINE game blog posts in a while.

For those who have LINE, they should know that Pokopang is one of their most popular games, with over 24 million downloads so far.

The game play is simple, you have to connect a minimum of 3 gems of the same color. Connect at least 4, and you get a cherry. Connect at least 10 gems, and you get a blueberry.