I am an amateur, not an expert writer or photographer, or chef like the WordPress-tutorial try to show me. But I’ll make some effort to make my pages worth to read. Maybe my hobbies or my interest or my field of subjects? I also make effort on making an artwork, some (mostly) doesn’t work, but once I give up, I might be also giving up in the future (take the credits, Hotaru no Hikari drama!) so even it’s bad, I’ll still like it, oh whatever, why do I write this cheesy stuff :p anyway, I like putting my work (its often anime or manga style, or a photoshoped one) on my social networking. For what purpose? I’d like to receive some comments to make my skill better.

And……….why don’t I introduce myself?

Nadya Cahya Paramitha was given by my dear parents (huhu I miss you all, my beloved-500-kms-far-away-family) as my full name, but simply just call me Tita. Some people call me Nadya, and actually it feels awkward. In a short words, I am, a student. Still a student, living in Indonesia, a cultural-rich city, Yogyakarta, doing some model mouths almost everyday to acquire new and fresh knowledge about dentistry. I almost 20. SIGH. I feel so old. So. Damn. Old.

So, if you feel like wanna find me, try this clues: fat, glasses, curly hair.

Arrivederci~!

I take most picture from Google. And combine it with Photoshop. Simply enjoyable.

p.s. Anyway, why did it tita512? Obviously my birthday date. :p

And, talent, when viewed in the wrong light, and be your undoing.

A little backstory is in order.  I started playing music in the 5th grade, in honors orchestra.  Back then, everyone was required to participate in some kind of music, and I wound up playing a violin.  The instructor was impressed at how easily music came to me, but, she was a pretty mean lady and so the next academic year I switched to band, and took up the trombone.  I played for 2 years, but transferred to a school that did not have any kind of music program, aside from a very tiny choir.  Around that time, I found out that I could sing, and I ended up in choirs both at school and church, including an advanced ensemble.  During this time, I got a guitar and started to teach myself how to play.  The youth group praise band had a bassist who didn’t want to play bass, so I took over for him, teaching myself bass as well.  Needless to say, I was Mr. Music.

I kept this up until the time I hit 20, which is also the time I turned away from the church for a decade.  I still had my instruments, and my voice, but I wasn’t using them.

So fast forward to about a year ago.  I find a new church, with an amazing band, and I find new life.  Music is still a big deal to me, and I find myself pulling out my guitar and bass, and I start playing the songs from the old days in the youth band as if it had been only yesterday.  I get an inspiration to start coming up with some music of my own, praise songs based on scripture.  Not much came of it though.  However, the music had once again taken a huge hold on my life.  I lived it, breathed it, the way that God had designed me to.

It was around this point that I screwed it up.

I won’t lie: I wanted to be in the praise band so bad it hurt.  I had spent every minute of my old church days in the band and choir.  It seemed only natural to me to get right back into it.  I sang my heart out during praise and worship, trying new harmonies, envisioning the notation in my head, thinking of new ways to sing the song better.  I started coming up with new arrangements in my head.  It was worship…but I was not worshipping God.  I was worshipping how well I was trying to worship God.

I bought into a self-created lie that I was amazing, better than most.  Who better to be able to help lead people in worship than someone who was so good at it?  Now, in all honesty, I knew I wasn’t the best, but all that would take is time and practice.  I started to think to myself about all the great things I could do with this talent of mine.  I didn’t really pursue it, aside from chatting with a few of the guys at one point.  I guess I was hoping God would just dump an opportunity in my lap.  That opportunity never came.

It started to bother me.  I mean, I’m good at this.  I even have my own bass and guitar and everything.  I was good at this stuff.  I can read music, I have great timing, I know most of these songs…why isn’t God letting this happen?  For months I questioned His logic.

Well, tonight, He gave me some great insight.  He had shown me glimpses in the past, but tonight, He blessed me with full realization of what He was thinking.

I was singing along, and thinking about the best way to sing it.  I also was thinking that it shouldn’t matter, that God could care less if I’m off key or tone deaf.  What matters is that we are worshipping Him.  That was a fleeting thought though…I have had it before but I always shoved it aside, because I was better than that.  Tonight, though, it didn’t go away.

We are currently working on a series about being empty.  After looking back at the notes fro mSunday’s message, it all hit me.  This whole time that I was perfecting my praise, it was empty.  I wasn’t giving back to God what is His.  Instead, I was giving Him something I thought was better, something that I thought was truly worthy of His time.  It’s essentially like I was boasting to God, like “see what I can do”.

I am such an idiot.  As if God doesn’t know what I am capable of.  He is the one who gave me the gifts of music, of pitch, of harmony and tempo.  And here I am, trying to impress Him, to show Him how good I am.

That is not the point of worship.  It is not about bragging to God about how great you are when it comes to singing or playing.  It is about taking those things that He has blessed you with, and thanking Him with those gifts.  I spent so much time analyzing my musical prowess that I lost sight of just clearing my mind and focusing on loving Him.

Pride is a horrible thing.  This is the second instance where I have let it almost destroy me spiritually.

Music is a part of me.  It is the way God made me.  All that He wants is for me to use it to sing praises to Him.  He doesn’t even want it to be polished.  He wants me to sing out, with all of my soul, a heartfelt song of thanksgiving.

I don’t care about the band.  I am killing those aspirations.

All I want to do is sing the way He wants me to.

Overlooking Jed Johnson Lake, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

Everyone has that point in their life where they ask an incredibly stupid question, one for which they not only know the answer, but have known the answer well enough that the sheer audacity of the question really makes you doubt your sanity.  I had that happen to me this weekend.  I took the kids to the Wichita Mountains to enjoy the great outdoors with my dad.  Of course, my boys can always con their grandpa into getting them some kind of toy or book, and this trip was no exception.   At the visitor’s center, my youngest picked out a large stuffed animal that was supposed to be a diamondback rattlesnake.  I can only assume it was supposed to be a diamondback because the little tag said this…to look at the snake in question, you’d think it came out of a psychedelic nightmare.  As my dad and I mused over how odd this snake looked, I saw the sewn-on fangs and asked my dad, “And since when do snakes have teeth?”

I’ll let you think about that for a second.

For those of you who are not “outdoorsy” or big fans of animal knowledge, it is common knowledge that snakes do indeed have teeth.  Our particular friend here, the diamondback rattlesnake, has fangs that are used to bite their prey and inject venom so that their meal doesn’t struggle on the way down.

I knew this.  I was active in Boy Scouts growing up, and as such I knew a lot about snakes, and snake bites.  Even during this weekend trip, I was both aware and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes so neither the boys or I would get a bit.  And yet, I seriously asked if snakes had teeth, and the strangest thing is, at that moment, I really had no idea if they did or not.

When it dawned on me that I had actually forgotten about snake teeth, I had a sad realization.  I had almost fully transitioned from being a nature lover who roamed the woods and enjoyed the great outdoors, to someone I could only classify as “indoorsy”.  It’s as if I had forgotten the first two decades of my life.  To say that this caused me a little concern is quite an understatement.  I mean, all my life, I found that I was happiest out among the trees and grass, climbing rocks, wading in rivers, hiking through beautiful countryside.  Of course there were times it was unpleasant, such as the one time I got a cactus embedded in my foot, or one of the many times I twisted my knee.  In the end, though, I always came back.  Something happened, though, and it is almost as if that part of me died.

Aside from the shock of forgetting my roots, I had a great time that day.  Better still, my kids did too.  It thrilled me to no end to see how excited they were being outside in such a beautiful location, and how enthusiastically they took to exploring and otherwise becoming wilderness children…at least until it was dinnertime.  Their joy helped to rekindle my long lost joy.

I’m going back.  I already have plans to hit the trails again, both near and far.  My intent is to never have to ask a question like that when it comes to nature.

- I yell all of the time.  This is increasingly noticeable to me lately.  Dogs (3 of them. What the heck was I thinking?) are always under my feet.  ALWAYS.  Labs are bred to be at your heel all of the time.  I must have good ones.  I trip over them constantly.  The min-pin is just a mooching pin-head and doesn’t know any better.  She’s the worst offender though.  So I’m yelling constantly at them to go away, or quit licking me, or to get out of my kitchen.  I hate that about me.  And then I’ve noticed that I have resulted to raising my voice at Savanna more than I should, because in my head, a louder voice means that I’m getting my point across to her.  She’s a smart kid.  She can understand me at normal decibels, too.  You’re right Bro.  I do yell a lot.  I’m sorry.  I’m working on it, starting now.

- I am a control freak.  I have a hard time letting go, and just letting things be.  Another blogger I recently started following just posted a really good one on the same topic.  It sort of hit home and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  I need to just chill.  Let the mess happen. Someone recently said to me that the floors are no harder to clean if there’s 1 day of dirt on them or 7.  It’s the same motion.  So I’m trying to make it a point to spend less time being stressed out about the fact that the house is a mess and more time with my family.  Last night, we played Wii (those frappin’ Star Coins in Super Mario Bros. will be the death of me, I swear.  How many worlds keep unlocking????) 

- I have the worst self body image possible.  I was talking about this in a round-about sense with Bro the other night, but the conversation hinged more on grown-up stuff.  Anyway, the topic was about how when you’re with someone for a while you tend to become more comfortable with yourself.  I think probably that’s true if your relative self stays the same.  Inside I’m not a ton different.  More mature because of the things that have changed in my life, yes, but the base is still the same. On the outside though, since I’ve had a baby, I really feel 100% different, and about 100% grossed out with myself.  I feel like a huge whale all of the time.  Then I went shopping the other day, and I was looking for jeans in a size 16.  I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t ever find anything.  Then I realized that maybe the reason why they’re always out of jeans in my size, and there’s an overabundance of them in 2′s and 4′s, is that I’m normal.  THIS is what a woman looks like.  Curvy and hippy and normal.  In all of my size-16 glory.  Granted, the goal is to not stay a size 16 for health reasons, but maybe I should try and embrace it.  So I’m working on that, too.

- Lastly, I need to borrow that backbone again, D.  I have realized that more times than not lately, I have been an unintentional catalyst for drama.  Like I was born with a drama-magnet in my bones or something.  It surrounds me and my life all of the time.  Like, ALL OF THE FREAKING TIME.  Sometimes I bring it on myself, but usually not.  Usually I just end up sucked into it, and really, I wish it would just stop.  I need to stop being blamed for things I had nothing to do with, and I need to stop being everyone elses scapegoat.  Is that the same thing?  Anyway – I need to start standing up to myself against other people.  I don’t want to be a door mat anymore.  That sort of relates to another blog I follow, and a post she recently put up.  I think a big part of the problem with people anymore is that everyone is so concerned about being P.C.  We’re all afraid of offending someone if we speak our minds and say what we’re thinking.  Know what?  THAT offends me!  You don’t have to be a malicious jerk to someone to get your point across.  There are tactful ways of saying things, but really, say what you think.  Maybe it’s a good thing to have your feelings hurt every now and then! 

So I’m going to work on these things for myself.  Because I want the change.  It’s about being the best you can become, not staying the exact same for your whole entire life.  Everyone changes.  Make it for the better. 

I was wondering whether this is about true self acceptance or just a resignation and acceptance of ‘your lot in life’.

Hopefully the former.

I started this blog just so I could share all my experience, with the world! In this blog you may find

• My personal experiences with some famous movie/music personalities

• Few samples from my Portfolio

• My views on Advertising & Music

• Some Tips for aspiring Artists

 Do keep checking for interesting snippets :)

Now, just a brief intro about myself. I have been in the field of South Indian Advertising for 30+ successful years. I am involved in Television and Radio Ads. My key profiles have included being a Singer and Dubbing Artist. I have also coordinated for innumerous Ads involving  many Indian Languages, Kids, Translation work/Scripts, Professional Voices and Models. 

The purpose of this blog is to share few samples from my Portfolio.

Do keep checking for further updates