Photographed Souls

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Seriously tho, how are you?

posted by Angeline Suwardi labels: daily . quarantine

Hi friends!
How have you guys been doing?
I hope all of you are staying safe at home and still sane from everything that has been happening lately.
I don't know about you, but I have been self-isolating for two months now since mid-March and it's been a bittersweet two months. There are days where I enjoy chilling at home and managing my own working hours (I still have to work from 9 to 5, but since my job is not really a work-from-home type of job, there is not much to do, hence I get to slack sometimes); there are also days where I feel like shit and eventually broke down crying because I hate this situation and I hate how some people can be so ignorant in this awful situation.

When I first got the information that my office decided to close down for a while and asked us to work from home, I was a bit shocked because it all happens too quickly. It was on Sunday and I already prepared myself mentally to go work the next day. I am the kind of person that will get annoyed at whatever changes last minute, I just don't like the idea of change okay? I am a planner. The Monday of my first work-from-home, it was weird, I was confused on what to do because we hadn't prepared for this, I think everyone in the office might be confused as well. But we figured it out eventually, I am back on scheduling clients for the online counseling/ teletherapy.

Here's a question for you: do you enjoy working from home? Because I don't, really. I got distracted almost all the time, I would be watching youtube or Netflix, mindless scrolling through Instagram, or went off reading a book and ended up neglecting incoming messages for hours. I am bad at working from home. I realized that I am bad at setting boundaries.
There are days where I would feel super productive and would actually do my work from 9-5 without slacking (okay, maybe a bit of slacking), and there are days where I would groan whenever I hear the ding sound from my phone indicating there's an incoming new message. I could just ignore it, but I can't. I'll get anxious if I didn't check the content first, and after checking it, I will be inclined to answer it because might as well. So yeah, that is pretty much how my working from home sounds like.

To be honest, working is one of the things that's been keeping me sane during self-isolating. Without it, I'm like a lost zombie, wandering around the house mindlessly. I found myself almost always looking for a new project to keep myself busy with, for example writing a blog post, reading and writing a book review, or even experimenting in drinks (matcha, dalgona coffee, etc). I just always need something to do, I can't not do anything, or else I might be stuck in the unmotivated and unproductive mode for days. Whether or not to stay productive during pandemic has been the biggest dilemma right now. People all over the internet are talking about productivity during a pandemic. I might get on with this topic for the next post because I have a lot to say (queen of ranting right here).

Anyways, work aside, I have been burying my head on books lately. This is the first time that I've read soooo many books in 2 months (many is quite relative, but to me reading 13 books in 2 months is a lot because I usually read 1 book per month). I've been working on writing the quarantine reads post but I'm kind of stuck.

I have been enrolling in an online class (free of course) as well. Since I was not paying much attention to my Introduction to Psychology class back in uni, I decided to retake the class because why not? I've got nothing else to do anyway.
I have also been working out, well at least for the first 2 weeks I have. I tried the Chloe Ting's 2 weeks shredded abs challenge, but since I couldn't do the whole 40-minute program daily, I decided to only do the 10-minute abs workout daily lol (!please don't judge me). I am not expecting much from my own body, I just don't want to feel like a sloth every day, so I squeeze in a short workout before bed, just to feel like I at least did something productive that day.

Surprisingly though, I have not been binge-watching Netflix shows. I just am not in the mood for tv shows, despite the amount of time that I currently have. Instead of Netflix, I have been watching a lot of youtube videos lately. I've been loving sunbeamsjess' vlogs, especially her 2019's vlogtober, as well as Wearilive and CatCreature's vlogs.

I guess I'll end my rant here. Too much rant and y'all will hate me lol.
See you in my next post! xx

Monday, May 18, 2020

Self-Quarantine Photo Diary #2

posted by Angeline Suwardi labels: eye candy . Film . quarantine

All photos were taken on Canon AE-1 Program & Fuji Superia XTRA 400 film

Saturday, May 9, 2020

Life Update 004: Moving Back to Indonesia

posted by Angeline Suwardi labels: daily

Hi friends!
I am back with another life update post because life has been full of changes lately and I just want to document these changes.

So, I am back in Indonesia!! How did that happen? For those of you who have read my previous life update post probably already know how this happened, but I'm still going to start with a little back story.

Back in 2014, I graduated from high school and moved to Taiwan to pursue my bachelor's degree. The reason why I chose Taiwan was that I wanted to get the hell out of Indonesia and since I have an aunt living in Taiwan, my parents thought, "yeah why not let her go." Just to be clear, my parents did not force me to go, it was all my own decision. I was interested in the Mandarin language and Taiwan seems to be a safer option than China considering how big China is and I've heard people saying that the citizens are rude? (Idk, that's just what I heard), so my only option was Taiwan.
To this day, I could still remember vividly the day I said goodbye to my parents at the airport and boarded the plane. While others were hugging their families and tearing, I was excited. I was excited to start a new life, make new friends, and create memorable moments in Taiwan. So I did exactly just that.
I graduated university in 4 years and stayed for another year in Taipei to work (in case you are interested in my life after uni story, you could check out my life update 002: life after uni post).
So now you are all caught up.

Last year, I made the decision to come back to Indonesia to pursue my career in a psychology-related field. Deciding on moving back to Indonesia was not an easy thing to do. I had to think long and hard, measure up the pros and cons, and focus on planning the future plans so that I do not regret moving back home. Although this decision does sound like an easy one for some people, because how hard it is to move back to the country that you were raised in right? But it's different for me. Growing up, I knew that I wanted to move out of Indonesia, I had a dream that I'm going to make a living abroad, because I was not happy in Indonesia. So, deciding on coming back home is actually a hard decision to make because deep down I knew that I would not love living in Indonesia as much as I love living in Taipei.

Despite the fact that I've prepared myself mentally for this big move, I still can't help but feel sad sometimes. There are days when I miss everything in Taiwan; I miss how cheap the bubble milk tea is, I miss how convenient it is to go anywhere, I miss the Taiwanese breakfast, I miss the safety of Taiwan's streets, and I miss my friends. I remembered breaking down into tears in my first month back. I couldn't hold it and I just cried. I cried and told my boyfriend that I hated it here, I shouldn't have moved, I should've just sucked it up and stayed in that job that I disliked back in Taipei or find a new one. But while I was saying that, I knew that wasn't true. There's no way I'm going back to that office and lived my life like a robot every single day. I knew I was saying that just because I miss Taipei so much. Whenever I broke down, my boyfriend was always there to console me, he was my pillar and my source of motivation to stay put and enjoy the Jakarta life. He too finds it hard sometimes. Unlike me, it was not his decision to come back and work in Jakarta, instead, his original plan was to stay in the UK or maybe move to Singapore. Unfortunately, his working visa was rejected and he had no choice but to come home.

I have been back for almost 7 months now (since September 2019) and I am slowly adapting. I landed a job in a month's time. Back when I was in Taipei, I thought that looking for jobs in Jakarta won't be hard, Jakarta is a big city and I'm sure there are lots of job vacancies. Boy was I wrong. It was hard alright. I spent my first month waking up only to find zero new emails from the companies that I applied to. I am not the kind of person who relies on connections to get a job, but at this point, I was growing more and more impatient every day, so I decided to message a friend who offered to help. And that is how I got my first job in Jakarta.

I am currently working in a counselling center as one of the counselor's personal assistant who happens to be the director of the counseling center as well. My job is to help her with scheduling her clients, managing workshop events, and any other administrative responsibilities. For the first time in two years, I finally am able to say that I enjoy my current job. Despite the administrative work, I sometimes get to observe how the therapists and psychologists handle their clients. Ever since I work in the counseling center, I am even more motivated to dive deeper into the psychology field. I am constantly learning and gaining new insights.

So, this is it. I am starting my new life back in Indonesia, I have a job that I like, and I am no longer in a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend. This is just the beginning, and it's been going well. I hope it will only get better.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Self-Quarantine Photo Diary #1

posted by Angeline Suwardi labels: eye candy . Film . quarantine

Hello there! I am back on the blog.
I was off for a few months partly because of the big move from Taiwan back to Indonesia, and mostly because I was lazy and couldn't think of a good content to put on here.

So, it's now 2020 eh? I was dreading to end 2019 so bad without a hint of knowledge that 2020 is going to be way worse. We are only four months in and I am ready to end this year and move on. I am sure everybody else feels the same way. 2020 sure knows how to welcome the new decade.

Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe in your home. I have been taking film photos of my daily activities in the house. I hope you enjoy the self-quarantine photo diary! Keep an eye out for more self-quarantine photo diaries because we probably will be staying inside for a long long time.