Now I got this bug again and again several time. No matter what tool I chose on Photoshop, it only shows the hand tool [will post a screenshot when it happens again]. At first I thought: “Okay, I have a bajillion thing on my memory it must screw it up. And I haven’t restart for a couple of days so let’s do that.” But after it happens more than once in a day. I start to pull out my hair a little bit.

One google search came up with this:

http://www.davidbisset.com/2007/12/15/photoshop-stuck-on-hand-toolicon/

*relieved that I’m not the only one*

I summarized a couple of things you can do to solve it from there:

• Restart the computer (a pain, but take it as a reminder if you haven’t restart for weeks )
• Pretend nothing happened, go procrastinate for a couple of mins and see if something had changed.
• Go to Edit > Preferences > General (or Ctrl-K) and then click Reset all Warning Dialogs
• CTRL + ALT + SHIFT at startup and delete preferences
• Press the space bar or caps lock

One thing I learned from my years of NaNoWriMo is just never give up. Refuse to give up. I’ve had obstacles too this month, I had to prepare my thesis presentation, which takes me the whole week (preparing, presenting, unwind from the stress of presenting). And then comes the usual devil of procrastination (this year’s suspects: facebook and plurk).

But I’m lucky, I’ve got advantages as well. I’m healthy, I don’t have any other obligations (pledging myself to be a full time author), and I have great support from my husband, my friends, especially fellow NaNoWriMo authors (yes I’m talking about you, wolfie, duckie, mike, miyu) whom I shared lots of word wars with.

In the end, I still have to write half of it in the final week. Here’s my progress graph:

Lots of reds and just a little green. Red means I didn’t get my target word count for the day but those bright greens means I did exceedingly well (I wrote 7000 words on Friday).

So, yeah, I did it! And now comes the more grueling task of finishing the novel and editing it. Bring it on!!!

The first rainbow I saw in Berlin. Beautiful and vivid. Here is the flickr link.

I’m going to post my experiences using Microsoft Word 2007 and LaTeX under Windows XP in several parts. Here comes part 1, which is about the installation and document structures. 

Installation

LaTeX

Installing Latex requires an installation of MixTex (Latex for Windows) and a Latex editor. There are several choices for editors: a nice free editor (TeXnic Center), a WYSIWYM editor (LyX), and a shareware editor (WinEdt). I use WinEdt because it has a nice syntax highlighting and I think it looks the best.

Once everything is installed, there are quite a lot to learn before a real document can be produced. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources that explain this (good starting point: LaTeX wikibook) and once you have a template and document viewer (pdf/ps), you’re good to go. Producing your first LaTeX document feels like displaying the first “Hello, World” on the screen (sorry this joke applies to geek programmers only ).

Microsoft Word

Installing Microsoft Word is easy peasy. That’s one thing I like about Microsoft products. One downside is just probably the price .

Once you have it installed, everything is ready. Just open a new document and type!

Document Structures

LaTeX

LaTeX actually forces you to make a document structure. This is definitely a good thing when writing thesis. From the beginning, the content should already be divided into chapters, sections, and subsections just to see the difference in the titles (hey, sometimes it is what we’re after).

The appearance of the titles, however, is not something that is easily customizable for LaTeX beginners. It could be quite frustrating when I want a certain look. But take comfort, there is quite a lot (scattered) resources on how to do this. Just googled it and dig your way through.

One easier way is to find a thesis template that meets your need. Might be your university provides one too. Check for it. There are also some nice templates available through The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.

Microsoft Word

The trap with Word is that it is easy to get caught up just enlarging and using bold / italic for headings. This is a big NONO. This is also one of the source of thesis headache with Word.

Always use the proper heading style for chapters and section. When proper headings are used, it will be easy to generate table of contents. Just remember to do this from the beginning. When I want to change the headers look, all I need to do is change the headers styles.

Oh and BTW, there are also thesis template for Word available on the Microsoft Office Online.

To be continued…

Usually though, for the flat shoes, 36 always fits. That’s why I ordered these pretty Pretty Ballerinas, especially irresistible since it’s half the price !

I wait for them come, seemed forever although it’s only 4 days , and then they finally came. I impatiently tried them on and they are too big for my feet . Damn.

What do I do? What do I do? Return them? It’s not impossible. Pretty Ballerinas does have a return policy and I can have it exchanged as well, but there’s no smaller size for this one. Besides, they are so pretty!

I have to make it work. I looked for some hints in teh interwebs. Interestingly enough, when I came across a men’s forum on this topic, most of them said: RETURN IT! Ohhhh… Maybe the hubby will think the same? Nooooo…. But luckily he understood that I need to try first.

I went out to the shoe store and bought these:

When I got home, I tried different things, some works and some don’t. I think it is also depending on your shoe situation. Mine has gaps in the front part and top, and the back kept slipping off.

• Front gap: I add cotton balls in front of the shoes until the length fits perfect.
• Top gap, first I add the half soles (a) but it’s not enough so I add the party feet half soles (b) as well.
• Back part: the footbed soles (d) just didn’t fit and it feels weird for me. Fortunately, the anti slip (c) is brilliant! It kept my feet from slipping off and protected it from blisters because it is made of soft nubuck.

On the weekend, I tested the shoes and it was still a bit uncomfortable. It actually became too tight. So I decided to remove the party feet half soles. I walked a bit more and…. it works! I don’t have problems with the shoe anymore. It looks great and it feels great!  Yay!!!

So in the end, I could make the size works. That being said, I would still prefer buying shoes that fits. But sometimes, just sometimes, I would just work it out. And now we live happily ever after… until the next season

A Roberto Benigni’s film, 2005. Starring Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, and Jean Reno.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419198/

The story is about a Attilio de Giovanni’s journey (Roberto Benigni) to save Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi), the woman he loves, and his quest to win her heart. Its main setting is at the beginning of the war in Iraq, with the perfect combination of sadness, comedy, and lots of hope.

It is wonderfully told; reminds me of the fact that when love combined with persistence and hope, it could change everything. In this case, it could truly save the love of his life.  

I would recommend the movie. It might start a bit slow, but believe me, it is worth staying through the end. And for those who is skeptical about war-themed movies, this is definitely not the depressing war movies. Yes of course there are sad moments, but as in life, sadness and happiness always joins hand in hand.

Rating: 7/10

I’m obviously in denial. I don’t want to believe in such things and I believe that happiness comes from within. It is not what the weather tells me but it is what I want to feel about myself.

So, luckily today I came across this two articles about staying healthy, and both mentioned the attitude change : smiling and positive change. I especially like this part from the article:

• If there is no sun in the mornings, make your own. Try upbeat music, brightly colored dishes, anything that will help put you in a “sunny” mood.
• Wear bright colors. Fighting off Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is partly about doing whatever you can to bring happy sunny color into your life. The clothes you wear are a great way to do that.

Cheers to smiling and happy colored clothes!!

4 cerita pendek. 4 sutradara perempuan bercerita tentang 4 perempuan biasa yang punya pengalaman luar biasa. Tapi kenapa dari 4 cerita ini, kok semuanya cerita penderitaan perempuan ya?

Please don’t let it be another depressing movie…

Gw memang belum bisa nonton filmnya karena gw lg nggak berada di Indonesia, jadinya gw nggak bisa tau ending cerita film ini dan opini gw cuma bisa berdasarkan sinopsisnya aja.

Tapi, gw percaya kalau memberi mimpi itu lebih baik dari sekedar menangis bersama.

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Splendid_Suns) adalah  sebuah novel karya Khaleed Hosseini (pengarang buku The Kite Runner). Novel ini juga berkisah tentang dua perempuan yang diatarbelakangi situasi politik dan kultur di Afghanistan yang menyudutkan perempuan.

Yang gw salut banget dengan “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, fokus ceritanya bukan ke arah penderitaan dua tokoh utamanya, tapi perjuangan perempuan untuk mencapai kebahagiaan dan kedamaian.

Gw nggak percaya kalau perempuan dilahirkan untuk menderita. Perempuan dilahirkan untuk membawa kebahagiaan, dan penderitaan seringkali hanyalah rintangan sementara untuk mencapai kebahagiaan.

of me, my hubby, and our friends in our first year of university. That was in 1997. 10 years ago… Wohoo I feel kinda old now 0.0.

It’s funny to remember that at that time he was just “someone from the same class as I”. Mind you, there were 78 of us (although only 60 are in the picture), so to get to know everyone personally was not a really simple task. We became good friends only 3 years after we met, half a year or so later we dated, and finally we got married.

So yes, I believe that love can grow. Or perhaps love was there all the time, but it will only reveal itself when we are ready.