Tak ada pun kad Birthday dari kakak tahun ini - ayah
i feel like the biggest jerk in the whole world. like the lowest of the lowest creature. like someone had just punched me in my gut. thousand apologies to my dad. i did send him the card, but much later than i should have. and i forgot to call him on his birthday. and everytime i tried calling him after that, he's always not home. i'm so sorry, i really am.
this past week had been hell without an internet connection in the house. i downloaded netzero, so i could use internet when i absolutely had to. it's still not up yet, i guess i just have to survive another week without it. i woke up this morning and my whole body ached. from paddling the raft yesterday. yup, me went whitewater rafting yesterday. we left friday evening, around four o'clock for maine. me, the bramono sisters, haruna, manal, shakir and usman. we had rented a tent for the night (except for haruna and dewi who stayed at a motel because of haruna's allergy) and were expecting... well, a tent. but the 'tent' turned out to be a medium-sized cabin with complete bunk beds built into the walls. it was a pretty nice place. we made a campfire, had dinner and had usman read our palms (mine read; not a typical girl, a lot of heart-mind conflict, just so-and-so self-confidence, learnt to think independently from a very young age, two strong emotional attachments before marriage, one marriage, start to like someone else while married, have one person who's always looking out for me and has a lot of influence on me). after midnight, dewi left to join haruna at the motel and the rest of us went inside with the intention of getting some rest before the big day. that didn't happen. manal was the only one who slept. diah, shaq, usman and i played cards until about four before we climbed into our sleeping beds. even then we still didn't sleep. i was donkey (read, i lost the game) and they were trying to make me sing. we ended up talking about (yes, what else but) marriage. manal woke up and joined us in our conversation. talked and talked until five, when i told people to shut up so i could sleep. i slept (or tried to sleep) for an hour. then i woke up because i was too cold to continue sleeping. we got ready and had breakfast. dewi and haruna had already joined us again by this time. we left the camping ground and went to the main building. we were told that we couldn't wear our own clothes because the water temperature was too cold. so we had to rent wetsuits and change into them. they were nasty. damp and smelly. we then got into the bus and had a half an hour ride to the river. saw huge baby moose on the way. our guide was called flash and he was fun. he had us in the lead raft because the rest of the group were high school kids from a camp. so our whitewater expedition began. usman and dewi sat on the far front of the raft, shaq and diah came next, then haruna and manal, and i sat at the back with flash. it was a fourteen-mile trip down the river. only one-third of it was the real stuff, the next one-third was just waves and the rest really was calm water. that was a bit disappointing. but the view on the kennebeck river was spectacular. we could swim in the river and just got back on the raft whenever we wanted to. of course i didn't (and still don't) know how to swim. so while everyone else was swimming i just sat on the raft with my feet in the water. after some convincing, i decided to get into the water (chanting "stay close to me" and holding usman's hand for the first several minutes). the water was cold, but it felt nice getting wet (definitely made wearing a wetsuit much more comfortable). eventually, i was floating by myself (and of course, the lifejacket helped :P) but flash made sure he kept the raft close to me so he could have easily grabbed me if i needed help. when we got back into the raft, we just sat there and talked and enjoyed the view, no more paddling. it took about three and a half hours before we had our feet back on solid ground. once back at the base, we rushed to the showers. felt much more like human after the shower. lunch was served (a barbeque) in the middle of a field. we had expected rain, but the weather couldn't have been better. it stayed cloudy all the time we were on the river and sunny after we got back to the base. then they showed slides of pictures of us paddling like crazy. after that, it was bye bye maine and welcome back to boston. the drive back was really nice, sunny and breezy. we got back at tufts around seven-thirty. i was really tired, but the trip was really nice. it was a much needed getaway, even if it's just for twenty four hours.