Tough Days & Our Focus

I was debating to write this or not, but, here you go; a bit of a dark post, with a glimpse of light hah!

I'm more than fine now, cos I'm very observant but also very apathetic as well.. but this month has been psychologically & mentally demanding, I reckon; but I know this’s nothing compared to many people who’s still struggling from natural disasters / covid symptoms / other unfortunate conditions. But I put something 'bright' at the end of this post too, that's the IMPORTANT part, hah

1. AIR CANADA kept changing the flight schedules every few days / weeks. Even, my last one, my connecting flight (second flight after transit) is flying 2-day earlier than my first flight to the transit city. What?!!! Then the quarantine required me to self-isolate in a hotel (approx $100-150 /day) for 5-14 days (depends); that's not cheap, obviously (and I always associate hotel is just like a fancy prison hah! I always try to stay with friends / airbnb and make new friends, instead of alone in a hotel.... that's sad hah). And due to COVID in Indonesia, I canceled my trip to Indo, 3 days before the schedule. The big family event is now postponed, too.

2. LOST MY FRIENDS / family-friends in Indonesia & The Netherlands due to COVID. (trigger alert for some on you, I know - sorry in advance). Lots of them are from Indo, due to the delta variant surge. And my brother is working from one house to another for patients who couldn’t get hospital bed (home isolation & treatment). The risk is so high; see? risking his health for many lives (I always admire doctors & educators that they're 'self-less', unlike today's idea that teaches us ALL is about ME, ME, and ME only; just a thought, deduce I've seen many individual freedom but not societal freedom in mind. Empty yourself for others, perhaps). Also, PLEASE STOP saying doctors and governments are doing some conspiracy on COVID, and PLEASE STOP saying covid is a hoax, or even the non-sense vaccine = injecting tracking chip… Or at least keep it to yourself.. Why many people dying so sudden at the same time, then?! And I just noticed (and did some quick research) many media companies (espc in North America) are so biased towards left/right wings, not many are neutral. What’s the point?! And thus, having hard time speaking to a friend of mine about the covid situation, as well as my cautiousness on covid, that they might just give me articles from right-wing media, of course, supporting stuff. This is medical situation, covid is not political situation, I reckon. Listen to the REAL doctors & scientists, they’ve been studying &/or dealing with this topics for yeaaaars and are still learning new stuff everyday regarding this covid.. we only checked google for an article that supports our own thoughts and we claim we know EVERYTHING. not even forget mentioning when someone tried to convince me a conspiracy, where if you search the author’s name, it’s BLACKLISTED already, and he/she didn’t checked it before blasting it to everyone else, including me, who was born and grew up in a fam with bunch of doctors and educators, who are still trying their best to safe life, and to still give education to our next generation kiddos. Please, just check everything.. Just check! And people in challenging surroundings, pls please stay safe and stay strong! It will eventually end!

3. June 17th 2021: iPAD GOT STOLEN in a park, where my reaction was just saying "Oh, come on......" (my apathetic moment has fully being shown hah! - that's sad yet funny, to some extent). When I did my morning work stuff, mostly emails, someone decided to run before my table and grabbed it while I was drinking. I’ve talked just to 2-3 friends about this.. Very shocked cos it was an early morning, quite park with birds singing under the trees, with a few people exercising and I'm just starting my lazy morning replying to emails and texts, but suddenly came the SHOCK THERAPY. Even today when going back to that park, it reminds me of that moment again. I’m fine though, don’t worry, but yea, just can’t forget that free 'caffeine-boost' (fully awake in 1 second) when I was just about to start my day. Also, in just a second, I decided not to run to catch the guy who stole it, cos I don’t know if he has friends or if he has gun / knife… or if I run, someone will steal my bike too or bag with my phone in it (no one knows, much worse things could happen when you're dealing with criminals). I called Apple: it’s been logged out (so I couldn't block the iPad), and Apple could do nothing though it still had warranty, no insurance, no nothing. (for your info, they said we need to buy another "theft insurance" for this occasion). Cos I need it for work, I have to buy another one with it's overpriced-pencil. I didn't know who to call as well; tried to call 911, they said it's not an emergency, so I tried to call the local police, file a claim online, but no update till today, so it's time to move on, probly?! It's just that unpredicted shock that bugs me down for maybe a few days...

4. VISA processing time: from 48 days to 219 days; originally applied early in March, way in advance, when I planned to go back to Indo, that I need it to come back into Canada. But even until today, it’s still 'processing'. I don’t see why it’s taking forever to apply. And this was one of the considerations for me to cancel my flight to Indo (point #1).

5. Still, APPLE WAS MESSING AROUND: my laptop’s WiFi was problematic, so I called Apple. They suggested this and that, passing me over from one tech to the other technicians, and after a few hour, the guy told me to do stuff to do kinda hard reset on my mac, and I could not start my laptop afterwards. And after 13 hours and many other technicians, it’s restarted with my applications gone, even calendar and contacts (the original apple’s apps are missing). Then another few hours again (didn’t sleep calling the 6th apple guy, then got it fixed, with a few data lost (my bad as well; my backup was from 3 weeks ago; lesson learnt).

6. HEAT WAVE up to 39c for a couple of days. That’s pretty hot, yes, even for me. hah! Followed by rainy week with a very very very close call to another flash flood in my area, just like last year's; reminded me of how much I lost (materials) last year; it was unpredicted, and all gone within 10-15 mins, and dried up in 2 hours later. And the work to restore the living area for months was pretty laborious.. I did take part, okay, 1%, at least..

7. I didn't have the flood again, this year, but heard news from FRIENDS WHO GOT FLOODED in The Netherlands & Germany….. Not mentioning Netherland’s also dealing with another covid spike.

8. ANOTHER THING that isn’t going as planned, that I can’t really say much here, regarding my work & my grand plan in life..

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Enough complaining, here's the fun part: I used to put effort and spend time everyday (before bed) JUST TO BE THANKFUL of 3 things happening during the day. Some days, this month, it was somewhat extremely challenging to find more than 1 thing to be thankful of. But, that’s the beauty of it, during this harsh-harsh month for me, if I try to really think enough, I actually have a couple of things to be thankful of!

At least, this month: - I’m now fully vaccinated (many can’t get and many are still waiting), - Still breathing fine and could do my exercise outside of the house, - Got to eat in a patio after 1-year absent with friends and with my lovely landlord (she wants me to call her roomie haha), - Had a blast on my birthday with lovely neighbours, friends, and landlord (aka roomie). 4 birthday parties! In fact, the picture i'm using here is my super-impromptu outdoor birthday hangout, made possible by my friends in Suzuki Music School... (thanks, once again). - Also being remembered and invited over, when a friend of mine was making pavlova (NZ / Aussie dish), followed by the Canada Day's fireworks. Looks like I have lovely friends over here, and they're taking care of me... - My violin students are still progressing well and (many of them) they're still doing their best - Doing the Baroque project with great violinists like Nicola Benedetti & my admired baroque-violinist, Kati Debretzeni, from The UK!!!!!! Just wait for the final video - will post it here - I'm finally feel like I somewhat belong here in this city after covid years, that a friend of mine hooked me up with his friends & him himself to do concert in Sept. If you live in Calgary, and longing for a music concert, hit me up I finally have friends of a local professional musicians!!!!

Back to my top-3 things I need in life; "GOD, FAMILY, & FRIENDS". I wanna say good food, but, that'd go to my 2nd-tier importance. hah. I still have them (though some are now resting in peace) & they still love me (so far) So, I’m more than thankful for all these!! Covid has turned our society to be rudely aggressive, for some reasons, but I have maaaany friends who's still considerate enough.

Yes this’s a hard time for many of us (some countries have more difficult situations than others, of course), but you could always see the bright light coming through into the cave! Yet this’s not an extremely GOOD month/year, but there're also things you could focus on (that cheers you, instead of drags you down), and I still believe that everything’s happening for a purpose & not by 'accident'. Find your comfort!! And share your smile with everyone else, no one needs your frustration, and they don't need a bad day because we had a bad day.

-and thanks for reading this long on my update, JUST IF you're interested, but I hope this's not really a pessimistic post, but could also reframe our ways of thinking. I just find it helpful on overcoming my stressful / gloomy days- aka, JUST SHARING......