“Who likes to romanticise living in the colonialism era?
You might want to learn the story of Pinah; a 10-year-old native Indonesian girl, taken away to the Netherlands to be a slave and treated cruelly” — Source
This reminds me of a Threads post, saying something along the lines of “a lot of us thinking that we would be part of the upper class whenever we are watching period pieces (“Bridgerton” series and the likes). In reality, most of us would be the lower class, peasants, or even worse. The servants? They were actually lucky and doing good in life.”
… and that stuck with me ever since. Especially with Indonesia’s history.
“We are standing on the top of our ancestors’ bones, blood, and graves”-indeed.
The featured image is a painting by Nicolaas Pieneman, depicting the arrest of Prince Diponegoro, a Javanese prince, by the Dutch. Please note that Nicolaas was a Dutchman and this painting was commissioned by De Kock/De Kock’s family, hence the painting depicted a victorious colonizer and how De Kock, the general who arrested Diponegoro, portrayed as “a loving father who has to send his misguided son (Diponegoro) away”, despite the Dutch was the one who betrayed Diponegoro by luring the prince to a “peace treaty meeting” and arrested him instead.
He appears to be struggling to control his anger – as would be expected from Javanese gentry – while the Europeans’ eyes are static and avoid the eyes of others
My son, a teen, has been doing the “night-time tidying up” task; that is, tidying up, cleaning up, fluffing the pillow, all those stuffs, in the night time before bedtime.
That said, with a teen handling house chores, it also comes with some “rizzed up friends”.
“Mom, Mr. Ducky is falling asleep in front of the TV after a party, alongside with The Ball.”
Back in February, I did something. Not exactly an extravagant thing, but still interesting nonetheless. It was this:
It was Ari (my husband) who tried it first out of curiosity, even though he felt the need to do so because his family has a history of diabetes. He then told me that he bought himself two sets of glucose monitoring device; “one for you,” he said.
The device is exactly what it says: Continuous glucose monitoring system. You will get a device that will be injected into your upper arm, and the needle will pick a blood sample from the bloodstream and read the glucose level. You will be able to see the numbers constantly, 24/7, on an app on your phone.
In case you are worried about the pain: Don’t be. I’m terrible with injections (despite me going to TCM for acupuncture every month!), and the process was really quick and pain-free. I only heard the whoosh sound when Ari injected the device, and it was done. Once the device is injected, you will need to scan the code on the pamphlet on the box to sync the device with the app on your phone.
The company is Ottai, specifically: Ottai Technology (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., which is based in Mainland China, so if you are wary of China surveillance due to the global political climate and, you know, having China-related app on your phone, you really don’t have to use this device. Since I’m generally okay with it (as my government has been doing a shitty job in protecting the citizens so the whole thing has been a “what-the-heck”-thing), I don’t have any concerns about this device and the app.
The device timeframe is 2 weeks, so you will need to replace it every fortnight should you need it. In my case, I used it for only 2 weeks and decided not to continue. Mostly because I’m satisfied with my glucose readings (it’s always within normal range) and I didn’t see any risk of diabetes for now. I did having fun in checking the graph, though!
Screenshot: February 20, 2026
You can see the spikes occurred after mealtime. Those spikes are normal (our sugar level in our bloodstream always increases after a meal), and what the doctors usually want to see is how fast the spikes go down. I also noticed that whenever I have a high-fiber meal, the sugar spikes are always within the normal range/not too high. This fact helped me in ensuring to get myself high-fiber meals and reduce my sugar intake. Also, since I wore the monitor during the month of Ramadan, I quickly learned that a simple iftar meal (iftar is the time when muslims break their fast in the evening/sundown) did wonders for my glucose level and reduced the extreme spikes.
In case you are curious, these are the meals I have been taking:
I also have been experimenting with salads, and my current favorite is tabbouleh. Also, you might have noticed in the pictures above that I’m using a portion-lunch plate. I got it from the Nitori store in Suria KLCC, and it has been SUPER helpful in maintaining a healthy food portion. The Malaysian Ministry of Health has been promoting the “Sesuku Sesuku Separuh” campaign: Divide the plate into three sections: A quarter for carbs, a quarter for protein, and half of it for veggies. I have to tell you: My meals never been this colorful (and much to the joy of my dietitian!)
quick blurbs
Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.
Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.
