Two days after arriving in a highland city where my grandma is, I decided to visit my favorite salon of an acquaintance there.

If you are wondering how dare I catching a flight home for Christmas and New Year in this corona time, well, I finally got myself swabbed with an Antigen test. It's like the combination of PCR and Rapid Test (higher accuracy than the antibody one), which costs IDR200k at the CGK airport. I had myself tested a few hours before the flight with a friend, and it was something. I heard if we took a long steady breath in while the nurse is doing the nose plugging, it wouldn't hurt. In my case, it didn't, but it was super ticklish, like holding a sneeze so bad for a long time. It made my eyes teary since the nurse was so spirited in twisting the bud inside for a while for fun (at least that was how it looked to me). I wanted to try swabbing her nose back, but I was in a hurry catching a flight (3 hours of spare time was a close call due to the long queue and walk, I should try 4 hours next time). Still, I'm thankful for the nurse's hard work.

Now back to this salon of an acquaintance. I found her thanks to my cousin, and I like how she has the same style and taste as me. My first impression when I first went there was that she was so pretty to me. I remember she asked me something like, "Lil sis, you are so beautiful! I think I saw you often before. Were you living in X city during school?" Long story short, we came from the same hometown that she even knows my small name, but I didn't even know her existence before! But now I'm a fan. I'm always drawn to older women that are pretty, strong, and driven. It's just that they are so empowering to be around.

2019 was the last I went there for a haircut, so upon seeing me, she bursts, "Yona, pretty Yona! I almost didn't recognize you. You look so much younger and taller. Are you still growing tho? You must be!" I laughed it off and shook my head. In my defense, I probably looked younger because I wore no make-up, and I looked taller because I'm underweight. Oh, but how I missed this jiejie, haha. Then, I consulted my home-dyed and self-cut hair. She took a look at it and smiled. She asked me what color I'd like. I said ash and brown, and I've always wanted to have the ash hidden in the inner layer. She caught on fast and immediately suggested black for the outside layer instead of brown so the ash can stand out from the inside.

Below is the coloring result captured in-door. The thing about ash color, it sometimes looks brown-ish in cameras. :(

My whole life, I have never had such dark black hair since my natural color is dark brown, but the idea seemed intriguing. Even up until now, it's the black hair that caught my attention first in the mirror. It makes me feel cold but fresh, and it fairly contrasts my pale complexion. I woke up to this hair everyday thinking, "My hair so dark like satan's soul. Ooh, but check the ash out." I'm fond of this monochromatic combination. that I want to keep them permanently.

Pictures below are up close in an outdoor setting:

When I think about it, I started to like ash-colored hair thanks to my childhood crush on Danny Phantom. :p

More selfies incoming (pardon the bare face):

Lastly, you might also wonder about the pretty jiejie I talked about before. After we snapped some pictures together, she mentioned looking cobby standing side by side with me. I just had to stoop a bit while she tiptoed a bit, and voila:

Place: Modern Golf & Country Club, Gading Serpong, Tangerang. Song: Champagne Problems - Taylor Swift. Taken using: Oppo A9. Video editor: Soloop (found randomly on my mobile after updating system).

You can see in the beginning of the video that I didn't use any ball at all. I just learned how to hit the rubber used to place the ball on, repeatedly. When I finally tried using a ball, I kept on missing it, haha, smh.. I observed myself during the first few hours of playing, and I noticed this: When I cared too much on the techniques, I'd fail on hitting the ball. When I did the technique randomly and only focus on the ball, I did hit the ball..but it was not a far shot. After a while, I realized that my technique was not right either, but we all learned by ourselves out there. Fortunately, there was someone expert next to us noticed my confusion and decided to come over and show us the right technique so we can copy it. The world needs more nice stranger like this.

While editing the video, I also noticed there was indeed a progress. From always missing the ball, accidentally hitting the ball when I was just measuring the stick, lifting my left heel as I prepared to swing, swinging my right leg over my left leg at the end of the swing (I wonder why would I always spin myself around like that), and many other. Only on minute 01:51 I noticed a real progress, seeing the steady left heel and the posture stability. While on minute 02:23, that's the best hit I had that day, I think, posture and power wise. Finally, the farthest hit I made (that the ball plunged into the lake) is on minute 02:23. Barney Stinson once said, "It's not legendary if your friends weren't there to see it," and yep, none of my friends saw that last hit, though they insisted they did. Haha.. I didn't mind they didn't see it, but I just had to tease them about it for the sake of teasing.

Meet Putri (@faradilla.putri), Aldo (@reonaldoalfela), and Fajar (@fajar.chaerul). I put their Insta too this time, because I wasn't sure before if I could do that, until they complained I was being heartless in giving credits. Hahaha.. Forgive me I didn't know, dear friends from office. I'll remember that :p